THE SCOTT LIBRARY, 
 
 STORIES FROM CARLETON.
 
 * FOR FULL LIST OF THE VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES, 
 SEE CATALOGUE AT END OF BOOK.
 
 STORIES FROM CARLETON. 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 BY W. B. YEATS. 
 
 THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD, 
 
 LONDON AND FELLING-ON-TYNE. 
 
 NEW YORK: 3 EAST i 4 TH STREET,
 
 TO MY FRIEND 
 
 THE 
 AUTHOR OF "SHAMROCKS." 
 
 W. B. Y.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOE 
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR ..... I 
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL . . .II? 
 WILDGOOSE LODGE . . . . . .183 
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING ..... 200 
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL ..... 240
 
 WILLIAM CARLETON. 
 
 AT the end of the last century there lived in the town- 
 land of Prillisk, in the parish of Clogher, in the 
 county of Tyrone, a farmer named Carleton. Among his 
 neighbours he was noted for his great memory. A pious 
 Catholic, he could repeat almost the whole of the Old and 
 New Testament, and no man ever heard tell of Gaelic 
 charm, rann, poem, prophecy, miracle, tale of blessed 
 priest or friar, revelation of ghost or fairy, that did not 
 already lie on this man's tongue. 
 
 His wife, Mary, was even better known. Hers was the 
 sweetest voice within the range of many baronies. When 
 she went to sing at wake or wedding the neighbours 
 for miles round would flock in to hear, as city folk 
 do for some famous prima donna. She had a great 
 store of old Gaelic songs and tunes. Many an air, sung 
 once under all Irish roof-trees, has gone into the grave with 
 her. The words she sang were Gaelic. Once they asked 
 her to sing the air, " The Red-haired Man's Wife," to 
 English words. " I will sing for you," she answered, " but 
 the English words and the air are like a quarrelling man
 
 x WILLIAM CARLE TON. 
 
 and wife. The Irish melts into the tune : the English does 
 not" She could repeat many poems, some handed down 
 for numberless years, others written by her own grand- 
 father and uncle, who were noted peasant poets in their day. 
 She was a famous keener likewise. No one could load the 
 wild funeral song with so deep sorrow. Often and often 
 when she caught up the cry the other keeners would 
 become silent in admiration. 
 
 On Shrove-Tuesday, in the year 1798, when pitch-caps 
 were well in fashion, was born to these two a son, whom 
 they called William Carleton. He was the youngest of 
 fourteen children. 
 
 Before long his mind was brimful of his father's stories 
 and his mother's songs. In after days he recorded how 
 many times, when his mother sat by her spinning-wheel, 
 singing " Shule agra " or the " Trougha" or some other 
 "song of sorrow," he would go over with tears in his eyes, 
 and whisper, " Mother dear, don't sing that song ; it makes 
 me sorrowful." Fifty years later his mind was still full of 
 old songs that had died on all other lips than his. 
 
 At this time Ireland was plentifully stored with hedge 
 schoolmasters. Government had done its best to crush 
 out education, and only succeeded in doing what like 
 policy had done for the priestcraft surrounding it with a 
 halo. Ditchers and plough-boys developed the strangest 
 enthusiasm for Greek and Latin. The worst of it was, 
 the men who set up schools behind the hedges were often 
 sheer impostors. Among them, however, were a few 
 worthy of fame, like Andrew Magrath, the Munster poet,
 
 WILLIAM CARLE TON. ri 
 
 who sang his allegiance to the fairy, " Don of the Ocean 
 Vats." 
 
 The boy Carleton sat under three hedge schoolmasters 
 in succession Pat Fryne, called Mat Kavanagh in the 
 stories; O'Beirne of Findramore; and another, the master 
 in "The Poor Scholar," whose name Carleton never 
 recorded, as he had nothing but evil to say of him. They 
 were great tyrants. Pat Fryne caused the death of a niece 
 of Carleton's by plucking her ear with such violence that 
 some of the internal tendons were broken, and inflamma- 
 tion set in. 
 
 When Carleton was about fourteen, the unnamed school- 
 master was groaned out of the barony; and his pupil, after 
 six months' dutiful attendance at all wakes, weddings, and 
 dances, resolved to make his first foray into the world. He 
 set out as " a poor scholar," meaning to travel away into 
 Munster in search of education. He did not go beyond 
 Granard, however, for there he dreamed that he was chased 
 by a mad bull, and, taking it as an evil omen, returned 
 home. His mother was delighted to have her youngest 
 once more. She had often repeated, while he was away, 
 " Why did I let my boy go ? Maybe I will never see him 
 again." 
 
 He now returned to his dances, fairs, and merry-making 
 with a light heart. None came near him at jig or horn- 
 pipe. He was great, too, with his big peasant's body, at 
 all kinds of athletic contests, could swing a shillelah 
 with any man, and leap twenty-one feet on a level. But 
 in his own family he was most admired for his supposed
 
 xii WILLIAM CARLETON. 
 
 learning, and showed a great taste, as he tells, for long words. 
 Hence it was decided that he should become a priest. 
 
 When about nineteen he made his second foray into 
 the world. His father often told him of St. Patrick's 
 Purgatory on an island in Lough Derg how St. Patrick 
 killed the great serpent and left his bones changed into 
 stone, visible to all men for ever, and of the blessing that 
 falls upon all pilgrims thither. To the mind of the 
 would-be priest, and tale-weaver that was to be, the place 
 seemed full of endless romance. He set out, one of the 
 long line of pilgrims who have gone thither these twelve 
 hundred years to murmur their rosaries. In a short time 
 a description of this pilgrimage was to start him in 
 literature. 
 
 On his return he gave up all idea of the priesthood, 
 and changed his religious opinions a good deal. He 
 began drifting slowly into Protestantism. This Lough 
 Derg pilgrimage seems to have set him thinking on 
 many matters not thinking deeply, perhaps. It was 
 not an age of deep thinking. The air was full of 
 mere debater's notions. In course of time, however, 
 he grew into one of the most deeply religious minds 
 of his day a profound mystical nature, with melancholy 
 at its root. And his heart, anyway, soon returned to 
 the religion of his fathers; and in him the Established 
 Church proselytisers found their most fierce satirist. 
 
 One day Carleton came on a translation of Gil Blas^ 
 and was filled at once with a great longing to see the 
 world. Accordingly, he left his native village and went
 
 WILLIAM CARLETON. xiii 
 
 on his third foray, this time not to return. He found 
 his way to the parish of Killanny, in Louth, and stayed 
 for a while with the priest, who was a relation of the 
 one in his native parish. At the end of a fortnight, 
 however, he moved to a farmer's house, where he became 
 tutor to the farmer's children. A quarter of a mile from 
 the priest's house was Wildgoose Lodge, where, six months 
 before, a family of eight persons had been burnt to ashes 
 by a Ribbon Society. The ringleader still swung on a 
 gibbet opposite his mother's door, and as she came in 
 and out it was her custom to look up and say, " God 
 have mercy on the sowl of my poor martyr." The peasants 
 when they passed by would often look up too, and 
 murmur, " Poor Paddy." The whole matter made a 
 deep impression on the mind of Carleton, and again 
 and again in his books he returns to the subject of the 
 secret societies and their corruption of the popular con- 
 science. He discusses their origin in book after book, 
 and warns the people against them. 
 
 Presently he found that he was not seeing the 
 world in this parish of Killanny, and finding, beside, that 
 life in the farmer's household was very dull, he started for 
 Dublin, and arrived with two shillings and ninepence in 
 his pocket. For some time he had a hard struggle, trying 
 even to get work as a bird-stuffer, though he knew 
 absolutely nothing of the trade. He wrote a letter in 
 Latin to the colonel of a regiment, asking his advice 
 about enlisting. The colonel seems to have made out 
 the Latin, and dissuaded him.
 
 xiv WILLIAM CARLETON. 
 
 In those days there lived in Dublin a lean controver- 
 sialist, Caesar Otway. A favourite joke about him was, 
 "Where was Otway in the shower yesterday?" "Up a 
 gun-barrel at Rigby's." He also had been to Lough Derg. 
 When he had looked down upon it from the mountains 
 he had felt no reverence for the grey island consecrated 
 by the verse of Calderon and the feet of twelve centuries 
 of pilgrims. His stout Protestant heart had merely filled 
 with wrath at so much "superstition." 
 
 Carleton and Otway came across each other somehow. 
 The lean controversialist was infinitely delighted with this 
 peasant convert, and seems to have befriended him to 
 good purpose. By his recommendation, " The Lough 
 Derg Pilgrim" was written. A few years later, Carleton 
 cleared away many passages. Caesar Otway would 
 hardly approve its present form. As we have it now, 
 the tale is a most wonderful piece of work. The 
 dim chapel at night, the praying peasants, the fear of 
 a supernatural madness' if they sleep, the fall of the 
 young man from the gallery no one who has read it 
 forgets these things. 
 
 From this on, there is little to be recorded but the 
 dates of his books. He married, and for a time eked 
 out his income by teaching. When about thirty he 
 published the "Traits and Stories," and with them 
 began modern Irish literature. Before long there were 
 several magazines in Dublin, and many pens busy. Then 
 came " Fardarougha, the Miser," the miser himself 
 being perhaps the greatest of all his creations. In 1846
 
 WILLIAM CARLETON. xv 
 
 was published "Valentine M'Clutchy": his pronounce- 
 ment on the Irish Land Question, and on the Protestant- 
 Catholic Controversy. The novel is full of wonderful 
 dialogues, but continually the intensity of the purpose 
 lowers the art into caricature. Most of the prophecies 
 he made about the land question have been fulfilled. 
 He foretold that the people would wake up some day 
 and appeal to first principles. They are doing so with 
 a vengeance. Many of the improvements also that he 
 recommended have been carried out. 
 
 Young Ireland and its literature were now in full swing. 
 The "National Library," founded by Davis, was elbowing 
 the chap-books out of the pedlars' packs. As "Traits 
 and Stories" had started the prose literature of Ireland, 
 Ferguson's articles on Hardiman's minstrelsy, with their 
 translations from the Gaelic, had sown a harvest of song 
 and ballad. Young Ireland was crusading in verse and 
 prose against the sins of Old Ireland. Carleton felt 
 bound to do his part, and wrote a series of short stories 
 for the "National Library" "Art Maguire," a temper- 
 ance tale ; " Paddy Go-easy," finished in nine days to 
 fill a gap left by the death of Davis, and attacking the 
 bad farming and slovenly housekeeping of so many 
 peasants; and "Rody the Rover," on his old theme the 
 secret societies. Rody is an agent provocateur a creature 
 common enough in Ireland, God knows. At the tale's 
 end, with mingling of political despair and Celtic fatalism, 
 evil is left triumphant and good crushed out. 
 
 A few years later, on the death of John Banim, an
 
 xvi WILLIAM CARLE TON. 
 
 attempt was made to have his pension transferred to 
 Carleton. It might have saved him from the break-up 
 of his genius through hack-work. But some official 
 discovered that this author of a notable temperance tale 
 drank more than was desirable. "The Red Well," "The 
 Dream of a Broken Heart," and all his beautiful and 
 noble creations counted for nothing. Government, that 
 did not mind a drunken magistrate, more or less, was 
 shocked, and the pension refused. 
 
 The rest of his life was an Iliad of decadence, his 
 genius gradually flickering out. Many a bright, heaven- 
 ward spark on the way, though ! At last, nothing left but 
 the smoking wick, he died at Woodville, Sandford, near 
 Dublin, on the 3oth of January 1869, aged seventy, and 
 was buried at Mount Jerome. A short time before his 
 death he received the pension refused years before, but 
 seems to have known much poverty. 
 
 William Carleton was a great Irish historian. The history 
 of a nation is not in parliaments and battle-fields, but in 
 what the people say to each other on fair-days and high 
 days, and in how they farm, and quarrel, and go on 
 pilgrimage. These things has Carleton recorded. 
 
 He is the great novelist of Ireland, by right of the most 
 Celtic eyes that ever gazed from under the brows of story- 
 teller. His equals in gloomy and tragic power, Michael 
 and John Banim, had nothing of his Celtic humour. One 
 man alone stands near him there Charles Kickham, of 
 Tipperary. The scene of the pig-driving peelers in " For
 
 WILLIAM CARLETON. xvii 
 
 the Old Land," is almost equal to the best of the " Traits 
 and Stories." But, then, he had not Carleton's intensity. 
 Between him and the life he told of lay years in prison, 
 a long Fenian agitation, and partial blindness. On all things 
 flowed a faint idealising haze. His very humour was full 
 of wistfulness. 
 
 ^ There is no wistfulness in the works of Carleton. I 
 find there, especially in his longer novels, a kind ol 
 clay-cold melancholy. One is not surprised to hear, great 
 humorist though he was, that his conversation was more 
 mournful than humorous. He seems, like the animals 
 in Milton, half emerged only from the earth and its brood- 
 ing. When I read any portion of the "Black Prophet," 
 or the scenes with Raymond the Madman in " Valentine 
 M'Clutchy," I seem to be looking out at the wild, torn 
 storm-clouds that lie in heaps at sundown along the 
 western seas of Ireland ; all nature, and not merely man's 
 nature, seems to pour out for me its inbred fatalism. 
 
 W. B. YEATS.
 
 STORIES FROM CARLETON.
 
 STORIES FROM CARLETON. 
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 ONE day about the middle of November, in the year 18 , 
 Dominick M'Evoy and his son Jemmy were digging potatoes 
 on the side of a hard, barren hill, called Esker Dhu. The 
 day was bitter and wintry, the men were thinly clad, and 
 as the keen blast swept across the hill with considerable 
 violence, the sleet-like rain which it bore along pelted into 
 their garments with pitiless severity. The father had advanced 
 into more than middle age ; and having held, at a rack-rent, 
 the miserable waste of farm which he occupied, he was com- 
 pelled to exert himself in its cultivation, despite either obduracy 
 of soil or inclemency of weather. This day, however, was so 
 unusually severe that the old man began to feel incapable of 
 continuing his toil. The son bore it better ; but whenever a 
 cold rush of stormy rain came over them, both were compelled 
 to stand with their sides against it, and their heads turned, so 
 as that the ear almost rested back upon the shoulder, in order 
 to throw the rain off their faces. Of each, however, that cheek 
 which was exposed to the rain and storm was beaten into a red 
 hue, whilst the other part of their faces was both pale and 
 hunger-pinched. 
 
 The father paused to take breath, and, supported by his 
 spade, looked down upon the sheltered inland, which, inhabited 
 chiefly by Protestants and Presbyterians, lay rich and warm- 
 looking under him. 
 
 " Why, thin," he exclaimed to the son, a lad about fifteen, 
 " sure I know well I oughtn't to curse yees, anyway, you black 
 set ; and yit, the Lord forgive me my sins, I'm almost timpted 
 to give yees a volley, an 1 that from my heart out 1 Look at
 
 2 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 thim, Jimmy agra only look at the black thieves ! how warm 
 an' wealthy they sit there in our own ould possessions, an' here 
 we must toil, till our fingers are worn to the stumps, upon this 
 thievin' bent. The curse of Cromwell on it ! You might as well 
 ax the divil for a blessin' as expect anything like a dacent crop 
 out of it. Look at thim two ridges ! such a poor sthring o" 
 praties is in it ! one here and one there and yit we must turn 
 up the whole ridge for that same ! Well, God sind the time 
 soon whin the right will take place, Jimmy agra !" 
 
 " An' doesn't Pasthorini say it 1 Sure, whin Twenty-five 
 comes, we'll have our own agin : the right will overcome the 
 might the bottomless pit will be locked ay, double boulted, 
 if St. Pether gets the kays, for he's the very boy that will 
 accommodate the heretics wid a warm corner ; an' yit, faith, 
 there's many o' thim that myself ud put in a good word for, 
 afther all." 
 
 " Throth, an' here's the same, Jimmy. There's Jack Stuart, 
 an' if there's a cool corner in hell, the same Jack will get it an' 
 that he may I pray God this day, an' amin ! The Lord sind it 
 to him ! for he richly desarves it. Kind, neighbourly, and 
 frindly is he an' all belongin' to him ; an' I wouldn't be where a 
 hard word ud be spoken of him, nor a dog in connection wid the 
 family ill thrated ; for which rason may he get a cool corner in 
 hell, I humbly sufflicate." 
 
 " What do you think of Jack Taylor ? Will he be cosy ?" 
 
 " Throth I doubt so a blessed youth is Jack ; yit I myself 
 ud hardly wish it. He's a heerum-skeerum, divil-may-care 
 fellow, no doubt of it, an' laughs at the priests, which same, I'm 
 thinkin', will get him below stairs more nor a new-milk heat, 
 anyway ; but thin, agin, he thrates thim dacent, an' gives thim 
 good dinners, and they take all his rolliken in good part, so 
 that it's likely he's not in arnest in it, an' surely they ought to 
 know best, Jimmy." 
 
 " What do you think of Yallow Sam f honest Saw, that 
 they say was born widout a heart, an' carries the black wool 
 in his ears, to keep out the cries of the widows an' the orphans 
 that are long rotten in their graves through his villainy ? He'll 
 get a snug berth I" 1 
 
 " Yallow Sam"- replied the old man, slowly, and a dark 
 shade of intense hatred blackened his weather-beaten counten- 
 ance as he looked in the direction from which the storm blew ; 
 
 1 This was actually said of the person alluded to a celebrated 
 usurer and agent to two or three estates, who was a little deaf, and 
 had his ears occasionally stuffed with black wool
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. $ 
 
 "'twas he left us where we're standin', Jimmy undher this 
 blast, that's cowldher an' bittherer nor a stepmother's breath 
 this cuttin' day. 'Twas he turned us on the wide world whin 
 your poor mother was risin' out of her faver. 'Twas he 
 squenched the hearth whin she wasn't able to lave the house, 
 till I carried her in my arms into Paddy Cassidy's the tears 
 fallin' from my eyes upon her face that I loved next to God. 
 Didn't he give our farm to a purple Orangeman ? Out we went 
 to the winds an' skies of heaven, bekase the rich bodagh made 
 interest aginst us. 1 tould him whin he chated me out o' my 
 fifteen goolden guineas that his masther, the landlord, should 
 hear of it ; but I could never get next or near him to make my 
 complaint ! Eh ? a snug berth 1 I'm only afeard that hell 
 has no corner hot enough for him but lave that to the divil 
 himself; if he doesn't give him the best thratement that hell 
 can afford, why I'm not here." 
 
 " Divil a one o' the ould boy's so bad as they say, father ; he 
 gives it to thim hot an' heavy, at all evints." 
 
 " Why, even if he was at a loss about Sam, depind upon it 
 he'd get a hint from his betthers above that ud be sarviceable." 
 
 " They say he visits him as it is, and that Sam can't sleep 
 widout some one in the room wid him. Dan Philips says the 
 priest was there, an' had a mass in every room in the house ; 
 but Charley Mack tells me there's no thruth in it. He was 
 advised to it, he says ; but it seems the ould boy has too strong 
 a hoult of him, for Sam said he'd have the divil any time sooner 
 nor the priest, and it's likest what he would say." 
 
 " Och, och, Jimmy, avick, I'm tir'd out! We had betther 
 give in ; the day's too hard, an' there's no use in standin' agin 
 the weather that's in it. Lave the ould villain to God, who he 
 can't chate, anyway." 
 
 " Well, may our curse go along wid the rest upon him, for 
 dhrivin' us to sich an unnatural spot as this ! Hot an' heavy, 
 into the sowl an' marrow of him may it penethrate ! An' sure 
 that's no more than all the counthry's wishin' him, whether or 
 not not to mintion the curses that's risin' out o' the grave agin 
 him, loud an' piercin' ! " 
 
 " God knows it's not slavin' yourself on such a day as this 
 you'd be, only for him. Had we kep our farm, you'd be now 
 well an' in your larnin' for a priest an' there ud be one o' the 
 family sure to be a gintleman, anyhow ; but that's gone too, 
 agra. Look at the smoke, how comfortably it rises from Jack 
 Sullivan's, where the priest has a station to-day ! 'Tisn't fishin' 
 for a sthray pratie he is, upon a ridge like this. But it can't be
 
 4 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 helped ; an' God's will be done 1 Not himself 1 faix, it's he 
 that'll get the height of good thratement, an' can ride home, 
 well lined, both inside an' outside. Much good may it do him! 
 'tis but his right." 
 
 The lad now paused in his turn, looked down on Jack 
 Sullivan's comfortable house, sheltered by a clump of trees, 
 and certainly saw such a smoke tossed up from the chimney as 
 gave unequivocal evidence of preparation for a good dinner. 
 He next looked " behind the wind," with a visage made more 
 blank and meagre by the contrast ; after which he reflected for 
 a few minutes, as if working up his mind to some sudden 
 determination. The deliberation, however, was short. He 
 struck his open hand upon the head of the spade with much 
 animation, and instantly took it in both hands, exclaiming 
 
 " Here, father, here goes ; to the divil once an' for ever I 
 pitch slavery," 1 and as he spoke the spade was sent as far from 
 him as he had strength to throw it. "To the divil I pitch 
 slavery ! An' now, father, wid the help o' God, this is the last 
 day's work I'll ever put my hand to. There's no way of larnin' 
 Latin here ; but off to Munster I'll start, an' my face you'll 
 never see in this parish till I come home a priest an' a gintle- 
 man ! But that's not all, father dear : I'll rise you out of your 
 distress, or die in the struggle. I can't bear to see your grey 
 hairs in sorrow and poverty." 
 
 " Well, Jimmy well, agra God enable you, avourneen ; 'tis a 
 good intintion. The divil a one o' me will turn another spade- 
 ful aither, for this day ; I'm dhrookiri* wid the rain. We'll go 
 home an' take an air o' the fire we want it ; and aftherwards 
 we can talk about what you're on 3 for." 
 
 It is usual to attribute to the English and Scotch character 
 exclusively a cool and persevering energy in the pursuit of such 
 objects as inclination or interest may propose for attainment ; 
 whilst Irishmen are considered too much the creatures of 
 impulse to reach a point that requires coolness, condensation 
 of thought, and efforts successively repeated. This is a mistake. 
 It is the opinion of Englishmen and Scotchmen who know not 
 the Irish character thoroughly. The fact is, that in the attain- 
 ment of an object, where a sad-faced Englishman would despair, 
 an Irishman will probably laugh, drink, weep, and fight during 
 his progress to accomplish it. A Scotchman will miss it 
 perhaps, but, having done all that could be done, he will try 
 another speculation. The Irishman may miss it too, but to 
 
 1 Toil, labour. 2 Dripping, very wet. 3 Determined on.
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 5 
 
 console himself he would break the head of any man who may 
 have impeded him in his efforts, as a proof that he ought to 
 have succeeded ; or, if he cannot manage that point, he will 
 crack the pate of the first man he meets, or he will get drunk, 
 or he will marry a wife, or burn a house, or hamstring a neigh- 
 bour's cow, or cut the throat of a proctor, or swear a gauger 
 never to show his face in that quarter again; or he will exclaim, 
 if it be concerning a farm, with a countenance full of simplicity 
 "God bless your honour, long life and honour to you, sir 1 
 Sure an' 'twas but a thrifle, anyhow, that your reverence will 
 make up for me another time. An' 'tis well I know your lord- 
 ship ud be the last man on airth to give me the cowld shoulder, 
 so you would, an' I an ould residenthur on your own father's 
 estate ; the Lord be praised for that same ! An' 'tis a happiness, 
 an' nothin' else, so it is, even if I paid double rint wherein 
 maybe I'm not a day's journey from that same, manin' the 
 double rint, yer honour ; only that one would do a great deal 
 for the honour an' glory of livin' undher a raal gintleman an' 
 that's but rason." 
 
 There is, in short, a far-sightedness in an Irishman which is 
 not properly understood, because it is difficult to understand it. 
 I do not think there is a nation on earth whose inhabitants mix 
 up their interest and their feelings together more happily, 
 shrewdly, and yet less ostensibly, than Irishmen contrive to do. 
 An Irishman will make you laugh at his joke, while the object 
 of that joke is wrapped up from you in the profoundest mystery, 
 and you will consequently make the concession to a certain 
 point of his character, which has been really obtained by a 
 faculty you had not penetration to discover, or, rather, which he 
 had too much sagacity to exhibit. Of course, as soon as your 
 back is turned, the broad grin is on him, and one of his cheeks 
 is stuck out two inches beyond the other, because his tongue 
 is in it at your stupidity, simplicity, or folly. Of all the 
 characters of all the people of all nations on this habitable 
 globe, I verily believe that that of the Irish is the most profound 
 and unfathomable, and the most difficult on which to form a 
 system, either social, moral, or religious. The only power 
 equal to grapple with it is that of the Church of Rome, and 
 certainly that lays Paddy in the dust ; there he is over-reached, 
 and bammed, and blarnied, and made to knock under. 
 
 It would be difficult, for example, to produce a more signal 
 instance of energy, system, and perseverance than that 
 exhibited in Ireland during the struggle for Emancipation. 
 Was there not flattery to the dust ? blarney to the eyes ? heads
 
 6 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 broken? throats cut? houses burned? and cattle houghed? 
 And why? Was it for the mere pleasure of blarney of 
 breaking heads (I won't dispute the last point, though, because 
 I scorn to give up the glory of the national character) of 
 cutting throats burning houses or houghing cattle ? No ; 
 but to secure Emancipation. In attaining that object was 
 exemplified the Irish method of gaining a point. 
 
 " Yes," said Jemmy, " to the divil I pitch slavery ! I will 
 come home able to rise yees from your poverty, or never show 
 my face in the parish of Ballysogarth agin." 
 
 When the lad's determination was mentioned to his mother 
 and the family, there was a loud and serious outcry against it; 
 for no circumstance is relished that ever takes away a member 
 from an Irish hearth, no matter what the nature of that circum- 
 stance may be. 
 
 " Och, thin, is it for that bocaun 1 of a boy to set off wid him- 
 self, runnin' through the wide world afther larnin', widout 
 money or friends? Avourneen, put it out of yer head. No; 
 struggle on as the rest of us is doin', and maybe ye'll come as 
 well off at the long run." 
 
 " Mother, dear," said the son, " I wouldn't wish to go agin 
 what you'd say; but I made a promise to myself to rise yees out 
 of your poverty if I can, an' my mind's made up on it ; so don't 
 cross me, or be the manes of my havin' bad luck on my 
 journey, in regard of me goin' aginst yer will, when you know 
 'twould be the last thing I'd wish to do." 
 
 " Let the gossoon take his way, Vara. Who knows but 
 it was the Almighty put the thoughts of it into his head ? 
 Pasthorini says that there will soon be a change, an' 'tis a 
 good skame it'll be to have him a sogarth when the fat livin's 
 will be walkin' back to their ould owners." 
 
 " Oh, an' may the Man above grant that, I pray Jamini this 
 day! for aren't we harrished out of our lives, scrapin' an' 
 scramblin' for the black thieves what we ought to put on our 
 backs an' into our own mouths. Well, they say it's not lucky to 
 take money from a priest, because it's the price o' sin ; an' no 
 more it can, seein' that they want it themselves ; but I'm sure 
 it's their* money that ought to carry the bad luck to them, in 
 regard of their gettin' so many bitther curses along wid it." 
 
 When a lad from the humblest classes resolves to go to 
 Munster as a poor scholar, there is but one course to be pursued 
 in preparing his outfit. This is by a collection at the chapel 
 
 1 Soft, innocent person. 2 The Protestant clergy.
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 7 
 
 among the parishioners, to whom the matter is made known by 
 the priest, from the altar, some Sunday previous to his depar- 
 ture. Accordingly, when the family had all given their consent 
 to Jemmy's project, his father went, on the following day, to 
 communicate the matter to the priest, and to solicit his co-opera- 
 tion in " questing," or making a collection in behalf of the lad, 
 on the next Sunday but one; for there is always a week's 
 notice given, and sometimes more, that the people may come 
 prepared. 
 
 The conversation already detailed between father and son 
 took place on Friday, and on Saturday a day on which the 
 priest never holds a station, an 1, of course, is generally at 
 home Dominick M'Evoy went to his house with the object 
 already specified in view. The priest was at home; a truly 
 benevolent man, but, like the worthies of his day, not over- 
 whelmed with learning, though brimful of kindness and 
 hospitality mixed up with drollery and simple cunning. 
 
 " Good morrow, Dominick," said the priest, as Dominick 
 entered. 
 
 " Good morrow kindly, sir," replied Dominick. " I hope your 
 reverence is well, and in good health." 
 
 " Throth I am, Dominick. I hope there's nothing wrong 
 at home ; how is the wife and childhre ?" 
 
 " I humbly thank your reverence for axin'. Throth. there's 
 no rason for complainin' in regard o' the health ; sarra one o' 
 them but's bravely, consitherin' all things ; I bleeve I'm the 
 worst o' them myself, yer reverence. I'm gettin' ould, you see, 
 an' stiff, an' wake ; but that's only in the coorse o' nathur ; a 
 man can't last always. Wait till them that's young an' hearty 
 now harrows as much as I ploughed in my day, an' they won't 
 have much to brag of. Why, thin, but yer reverence stands 
 it bravely faix, wondherfully itself the Lord be praised ! an* 
 it warms my own heart to see you look so well." 
 
 " Thank you, Dominick. Indeed, my health, God be thanked, 
 is very good. Ellish," he added, calling to an old female 
 servant "you'll take a glass, Dominick, the day is cowldish 
 Ellish, here, take the kay, and get some spirits the poteen, 
 Ellish to the right hand in the cupboard. Indeed, my health 
 is very good, Dominick. Father Murray says he invies me 
 my appetite, an' I tell him he's guilty of one of the seven deadly 
 sins." 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha ! Faix, an' invy is one o' them, sure enough ; 
 but a joke is a joke in the manetime. A pleasant gintleman 
 is the same Father Murray, but yer reverence is too deep for
 
 8 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 him in the jokin' line, for all that. Ethen, sir, but it's you that 
 gave ould Cokely the keen cut about his religion ha, ha, ha ! 
 Myself laughed till I was sick for two days afther it the ould 
 thief!" 
 
 " Eh ? Did you hear that, Dominick ? Are you sure that's 
 the poteen, Ellish? Ay, an' the best of it all was that his 
 pathrun, Lord Foxhimter, was present. Come, Dominick, try 
 that it never seen wather. But the best of it all was 
 
 " ' Well, Father Kavanagh,' said he, ' who put you into the 
 Church ? Now,' said he, ' you'll come over me wid your regular 
 succession from St. Peter, but I won't allow that.' 
 
 " ' Why, Mr. Cokely,' says I back to him, ' I'll give up the 
 succession,' says I, 'and what is more, I'll grant that you have 
 been called by the Lord, and that 7 have not; but the Lord 
 that called you,' says I, ' was Lord Foxhunter? Man, you'd tie 
 his Lordship wid a cobweb, he laughed so heartily. 
 
 " ' Bravo, Father Kavanagh,' said he. ' Cokely, you're bate] 
 said he ; 'and upon my honour, you must both dine with me 
 to-day,' says he and capital claret he keeps." 
 
 " Your health, Father Kavanagh, an' God spare you to us ! 
 Hah ! wather 1 Oh, the divil a taste itself did the same stuff 
 see. Why, thin, I think your reverence an' me's about an age. 
 I bleeve I'm a thrifle ouldher ; but I don't bear it so well as 
 you do. The family, you see, and the childhre, an' the cares 
 o' the world, pull me down ; throth, the same family's a throuble 
 to me. I wish I had them all settled safe, anyway." 
 
 "What do you intend to do wid them, Dominick ?" 
 
 " In throth, that's what brought me to yer reverence. I've 
 one boy Jimmy a smart chap entirely, an' he has taken it 
 into his head to go as a poor scholar to Munster. He's fond o' 
 the larnin', there's not a doubt o' that, and small blame to him, 
 to be sure ; but then, again, what can I do ? He's bint on 
 goin', an' I'm not able to help him, poor fellow, in any shape ; 
 so I made bould to see yer reverence about it, in hopes that 
 you might be able to plan out something for him more betther 
 nor I could do. I have the good wishes of the neighbours, and 
 indeed of the whole parish, let the thing go as it may." 
 
 " I know that, Dominick, and for the same rason we'll have 
 a ' Quest ' 1 at the three althars. I'll mintion it to them after 
 mass to-morrow, and let them be prepared for Sunday week, 
 when you can make the collection. Hut, man, never fear ; 
 we'll get as much as will send him half-way to the priesthood ; 
 
 1 A charitable collection.
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 9 
 
 and I'll tell you what, Dominick, I'll never be the man to refuse 
 giving him a couple of guineas myself." 
 
 "May the heavenly Father bless an' keep your reverence. 
 I'm sure 'tis a good right the boy has, as well as all of us, 
 to never forget your kindness. But as to the money he'll be 
 proud of your assistance the other way, sir so not a penny 'tis 
 only your good-will we want hem except, indeed, that you'd 
 wish yourself to make a piece of kindness of it to the poor boy. 
 Oh, not a drop more, sir I declare it'll be apt to get into my 
 head. Well, well, sure an' we're not to disobey our clargy, 
 whether or not: so here's your health over agin, your rever- 
 ence ! an' success to the poor child that's bint on good 1 " 
 
 " Two guineas his reverence is to give you from himself, 
 Jimmy," said the father, on relating the success of this interview 
 with the priest; "an' faix, I was widin one of refusin' it, for 
 feard it might bring something unlucky^ wid it ; but, thought I, 
 on the spur, it's best to take it, anyway. We can asily put it 
 off on some o' these black-mouthed Presbytarians or Orange- 
 men, by way of changin' it, an' if there's any hard fortune in it, 
 let them have the full benefit of it, ershi misha." a 
 
 It is by trifles of this nature that the invincible and enduring 
 hatred with which the religious sects of Ireland detest those of 
 a different creed is best known. This feeling, however, is 
 sufficiently mutual. Yet on both sides there is something more 
 speculative than practical in its nature. When they speak of 
 each other as a distinct class, the animosity, though abstracted, 
 appears to be most deep ; but when they mingle in the necessary 
 intercourse of life, it is curious to see them frequently descend, 
 on both sides, from the general rule to those exceptions of 
 good-will and kindness which natural benevolence and mutual 
 obligation, together with a correct knowledge of each other's 
 real characters, frequently produce. This abstracted hatred 
 has been generally the curse of our unhappy country ; it has 
 kept us too much asunder, or, when we met, exhibited us to 
 each other in our darkest and most irritating aspects. 
 
 Dominick's conduct in the matter of the priest' s money was 
 also a happy illustration of that mixture of simplicity and 
 shrewdness with which an Irishman can frequently make points 
 meet, which superstition alone, without ingenuity, would keep 
 
 is a superstitious belief in some parts of Ireland that priest's 
 nlucky ; " because," say the people, " it is the price of sin " 
 
 1 There 
 money is un 
 
 alluding to absolution. 
 
 2 Say I.
 
 10 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 separate for ever. Many another man might have refused the 
 money from an ignorant dread of its proving unlucky ; but 
 his mode of reasoning on the subject was satisfactory to 
 himself, and certainly the most ingenious which, according to 
 his belief, he could have adopted. 
 
 The eloquence of a country priest, though rude, and by no 
 means elevated, is sometimes well adapted to the end in view, 
 to the feelings of his auditory, and to the nature of the subject 
 on which he speaks. Pathos and humour are the two levers 
 by which the Irish character is raised or depressed ; and these 
 are blended in a manner too anomalous to be ever properly 
 described. Whoever could be present at a sermon on the 
 Sunday when a Purgatorian Society is to be established would 
 hear pathos and see grief of the first water. It is then he 
 would get a " nate " and glowing description of Purgatory, and 
 see the broad, humorous Milesian faces of three or four 
 thousand persons of both sexes shaped into an expression of 
 the most grotesque and clamorous grief. The priest, however, 
 on particular occasions of this nature, very shiewdly gives 
 notice of the sermon, and of the purpose for which it is to be 
 preached : if it be grave, the people are prepared to cry ; but if 
 it be for a political or any other purpose not decidedly religious, 
 there will be abundance of that rough, blunt satire and mirth so 
 keenly relished by the peasantry, illustrated, too, by the most 
 comical and ridiculous allusions. That priest, indeed, who is 
 the best master of this latter faculty is uniformly the greatest 
 favourite. It is no unfrequent thing to see the majority of an 
 Irish congregation drowned in sorrow and tears, even when 
 they are utterly ignorant of the language spoken ; particularly 
 in those districts where the Irish is still the vernacular tongue. 
 This is what renders notice of the sermon and its purport 
 necessary ; otherwise the honest people might be seriously at a 
 loss whether to laugh or cry. 
 
 " Ellish, avourneen, gho dhe dirsha? Ellish, my dear, what 
 is he saying ? " 
 
 " Och, musha niel eshighum, ahagttr ta sha er Purgathor, 
 to. barlhum. Och, I dunna that, jewel ; I bleeve he's on 
 Purgatory." 
 
 " Och) odi, oh och, och, oh oh, f, oh, /, oh /" 
 
 And on understanding that Purgatory is the subject, they 
 commence their grief with a rocking motion, wringing their 
 hands, and unconsciously passing their beads through their 
 fingers, whilst their bodies are bent forward towards the 
 earth.
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. TI 
 
 On the contrary, when the priest gets jocular which I should 
 have premised he never does in what is announced as a 
 solemn sermon you might observe several faces, charged 
 with mirth and laughter, turned, even while beaming with this 
 expression, to those who kneel beside them, inquiring 
 
 " Arrah, Barny, what is it ha, ha, ha 1 what is it he's 
 sayin'? The Lord spare him among us, anyhow, the darlin' of 
 a man ! Eh, Barny, you that's in the inside o' the English ?" 
 
 Barny, however, is generally too much absorbed in the fun to 
 become interpreter just then ; but as soon as the joke is nearly 
 heard out, in compliance with the importunity of his neighbours, 
 he gives them a brief hint or two, and instantly the full chorus 
 is rung out, long, loud, and jocular. 
 
 On the Sunday in question, as the subject could not be called 
 strictly religious, the priest, who knew that a joke or two would 
 bring in many an additional crown to Jimmy's caubeen, was 
 determined that they should at least have a laugh for their 
 money. The man, besides, was benevolent, and knew the way 
 to the Irish heart a knowledge which he felt happy in turning 
 to the benefit of the lad in question. 
 
 With this object in view, he addressed the people somewhat 
 in the following language : 
 
 " Blessed is he that giveth his money to him that standeth in 
 need of it. 
 
 "These words, my brethren, are taken from St. Paul, who, 
 among ourselves, knew the value of a friend in distress as well 
 as any other apostle in the three kingdoms hem ! It's a nate 
 text, my friends, anyhow. He manes, however, when we have 
 it to give, my own true, well-tried ould friends ! when we 
 have it to give. Its absence althers the case in toto ; because 
 you have all heard the proverb ' There is no takin' money out 
 of an empty purse ;' or, as an ould ancient author said long ago 
 upon the same subject 
 
 " ' Cantabit whackuus coram lathrone whiathur ! ' 
 
 (Dshk, dshk, dshk 1 that's the larnin' I) He that carries an 
 empty purse may whistle at the thief. It's sing in the Latin ; 
 but sing or whistle, in my opinion, he that goes wid an empty 
 purse seldom sings or whistles to a pleasant tune. Melancholy 
 music I'd call it, an' wouldn't, maybe, be much astray afther. 
 
 1 This sound, which expresses wonder, is produced by striking the 
 tip of the tongue against the palate.
 
 12 THE POOR SCHOLAR 
 
 Hem ! At all evints, may none of this present congregation, 
 whin at their devotions, ever sing or whistle to the same tune 1 
 No ; let it be to ' money in both pockets,' if you sing at all ; 
 and as long as you have that, never fear but you'll also have 
 the 'priest in his boots' into the bargain [Ha, ha, ha! 
 God bless him, isn't he the pleasant gintleman, all out ha, 
 ha, ha 1 moreover, an' by the same a token, it's thrue as 
 Gospel, so it is] for well I know that you're the high-spirited 
 people, who wouldn't see your priest without them, while a fat 
 parson, with half-a-dozen chins upon him, red and rosy, goes 
 about every day in the week bogged in boots, like a horse 
 trooper 1 [Ha, ha, ha 1 good, Father Dan ! More power to 
 you ha, ha, ha ! We're the boys that wouldn't see you in 
 want o' them, sure enough. Isn't he the droll crathur?] 
 
 " But suppose a man hasn't money, what is he to do ? 
 Now, this divides itself into what is called Hydrostatics an 1 
 Metaphysics, and must be proved logically in the following 
 manner : 
 
 "First, we suppose him not to have the money there I may 
 be wrong or I may be right ; now for the illustration and the 
 logic. 
 
 " Pether Donovan." 
 
 " Here, your reverence." 
 
 " Now, Pether, if I suppose you to have no money, am I 
 right, or am I wrong ?" 
 
 " Why, thin, I'd be sarry to prove your reverence to be wrong, 
 so I would ; but for all that, I bleeve I must give it aginst 
 you." 
 
 "How much have you got, Pether?" 
 
 " Ethen, but 'tis yer reverence that's comin' close upon me : 
 two or three small notes an' some silver." 
 
 "How much silver, Pether?" 
 
 " I'll tell your reverence in a jiffy. I ought to have a ten 
 shillin', barrin' the price of a quarther o' tobaccy that I bought 
 at the crass-roads beyant. Nine shillin's an' some hapuns, yer 
 reverence." 
 
 " Very good, Pether ; you must hand me the silver, till I give 
 the rest of the illustration wid it." 
 
 "But does yer reverence mind another ould proverb? 'A 
 fool an' his money's asy parted.' Sure an' I know you're goin' 
 to do a joke upon me." 
 
 (" Give him the money, Pether," from a hundred voices ; 
 "give his reverence the money, you nager, you give him the 
 silver, you dirty spalpeen, you hand it out, you misert.")
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 13 
 
 " Pether, if you don't give it dacently, I'll not take it ; and in 
 that case " 
 
 " Here, here, your reverence here it is ; sure I wouldn't have 
 your ill-will for all I'm worth." 
 
 " Why, you nager, if I wasn't the first orathor livin', barrin' 
 Cicero or Demosthenes himself, I couldn't schreiv a. penny out 
 o' you ! Now, Pether, there's a specimen of logic for you ; an' 
 if it wasn't good, depind upon it the money would be in your 
 pocket still. I've never known you to give a penny for any 
 charitable purpose since ever I saw your face ; but I'm doin* a 
 good action in your behalf for once ; so if you have any movin' 
 words to say to the money in question, say them, for you'll 
 never finger it more." 
 
 A burst of the most uproarious mirth followed this manoeuvre, 
 in which the simple priest joined heartily ; whilst the melancholy 
 of Peter's face was ludicrously contrasted with the glee which 
 characterised those that surrounded him. 
 
 " Hem ! Secondly. A man, you see, may have money, or he 
 may not, when his fellow-creature who stands in eed of it 
 makes an appale to his dacency and his feelings ; and sorry I'd 
 be to think that there's a man before me, or woman either, 
 who'd refuse to assist the distresses of any one, of any ci eed, 
 church, or persuasion, whether white, black, or yallow. It's 
 what I never taught you, nor never will tache you to the day of 
 my death ! To be sure, a fellow-creature may say, ' Help me, 
 my brother, I am distressed ;' or, ' I am bent on a good pur- 
 pose, that your kindness can enable me to accomplish.' But 
 suppose that you have not the money about you at the time, 
 wouldn't you feel sorry to the backbone ? Ay, would yees to 
 the very core of the heart itself. Or if any man an' he'd be 
 nothing else than a bodagh that would say it if any man would 
 tell me that you would not, I'd yes I'd give him his answer, 
 as good as I gave to ould Cokely long ago. 
 
 " The next point is, What would you do if you hadn't it about 
 you ? It's I that can tell you what you'd do. You'd say, ' I 
 haven't got it, brother' for ev'ry created bein' of the human 
 kind is your brother, barrin' the women, an' they are your 
 sisters [this produced a grin upon many faces] ' but,' says 
 you, ' if you wait for a day or two, or a week, or maybe for a 
 fortnight, I'll try what I can do to help you.' 
 
 "Picture to yourselves a fellow-creature in distress suppose 
 him to have neither hat, shoe, nor stocking [this was a touch 
 of the pathetic] and altogether in a state of utter destitution 1 
 Can there be a more melancholy picture than this ? No, there 
 
 3
 
 i 4 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 can't. But 'tisn't the tithe of it! a barefaced robbery is the 
 same tithe think of him without father, mother, or friend upon 
 the earth maybe he has poor health maybe he's sick, an' in a 
 sthrange country [here Jemmy's mother and friends sobbed 
 aloud, and the contagion began to spread the priest, in fact, 
 knew where to touch] his face is pale -his eyes sunk with 
 sickness and sorrow in his head his bones are cuttin' the skin 
 he knows not where to turn himself hunger and sickness are 
 strivin' for him. [Here the grief became loud and general, and 
 even the good-natured preacher's own voice got somewhat 
 unsteady.] He's in a bad state entirely miserable! more 
 miserable ! ! most miserable ! ! ! [Och, och, oh !] sick, sore, 
 and sorry! he's to be pitied, felt for, and compassionated! [a 
 general outcry] 'tis a faver he has, or an ague maybe, or a 
 rheumatism, or an embargo 1 on the limbs, or the king's evil, or a 
 consumption, or a decline, or God knows but it's the falling- 
 sickness. [Och, och, oh ! och, och, oh ! from the whole congre- 
 gation, whilst the simple old man's eyes were blinded with tears 
 at the force of the picture he drew.] Ay, maybe it's thtfalling- 
 sickness, and in that case how on earth can he stand it ? [He 
 can't, he can't, wurra strew, wurra strew ! och, och, oh ! ogh, 
 ogh, ogh !] The Lord in heaven look down upon him [Amin, 
 amin, this blessed an' holy Sunday that's in it ! och, oh !] 
 pity him [Amin, amin! och, och, an' amin!] with misera- 
 cordial feeling and benediction ! He hasn't a rap in his 
 company ! moneyless, friendless, houseless, an' homeless ! Ay, 
 my friends, you all have homes but he has none ! Thrust 
 back by every hard-hearted spalpeen, and he maybe a better 
 father's son than the Turk that refuses him ! Look at your 
 own childhre, my friends ! Bring the case home to yourselves ! 
 Suppose he was one of them alone on the earth, and none to 
 pity him in his sorrows ! Your own childhre, I say, in a strange 
 land ! [Here the outcry became astounding men, women, and 
 children in one general uproar of grief.] An' this may all be 
 Jimmy M'Evoy's case, that's going in a week or two to Munster 
 as a poor scholar may be his case, I say, except you befriend 
 him, and show your dacency and your feelings, like Christians 
 and Catholics ; and for either dacency or kindness I'd turn yees 
 against any other congregation in the diocess, or in the kingdom 
 ay, or against Dublin itself, if it was convanient." 
 
 Now here was a coup de main not a syllable mentioned 
 about Jemmy M'Evoy until he had melted them down ready 
 
 1 Lumbago, we presume.
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 15 
 
 for the impression, which he accordingly made to his heart's 
 content 
 
 " Ay," he went on, " an' 'tis the parish of Ballysogarth that 
 has the name far and near for both, and well they desarve it. 
 You won't see the poor gorsoon go to a sthrange country with 
 empty pockets. He's the son of an honest man one of 
 yourselves ; and although he's a poor man, you know 'twas 
 Yallow Sam that made him so that put him out of his com- 
 fortable farm and slipped a black mouth into it. You won't 
 turn your backs on the son in regard of that, anyway. As for 
 Sam, let him pass ; he'll not grind the poor nor truckle to the 
 rich when he gives up his stewardship in the kingdom come. 
 Lave him to the friend of the poor to his God ; but the son of 
 them that he oppressed, you will stand up for. He's going to 
 Munster, to learn ' to go upon the Mission ' ; and on Sunday 
 next there will be a collection made here and at the other two 
 althars for him ; and, as your own characters are at stake, I 
 trust it will be neither mane nor shabby. There will be 
 Protestants here, I'll engage, and you must act dacently before 
 them, if it was only to set them a good example. And now I'll 
 tell yees a story that the mintion of the Protestants brings to 
 my mind : 
 
 " There was, you see, a Protestant man and a Catholic woman 
 once married together. The man was a swearing, drinking, 
 wicked rascal, and his wife the same : between them they were 
 a blessed pair, to be sure. She never bent her knee under a 
 priest until she was on her death-bed ; nor was he known ever 
 to enter a church door, nor to give a shilling in charity but 
 once, that being as follows : He was passing a Catholic place 
 of worship one Sunday, on his way to fowl for he had his dog 
 and gun with him ; 'twas beside a road, and many of the 
 congregation were kneeling out across the way. Just as he 
 passed they were making a collection for a poor scholar and 
 surely they that love the laming desarve to be encouraged ! 
 Well, behold you says one of them, ' Will you remember the 
 poor scholar,' says he, ' and put something in the hat ? You 
 don't know," says he, ' but his prayers will be before you." 
 ' True enough, maybe,' says the man, ' and there's a crown to 
 him, for God's sake.' Well and good the man died, and so 
 did the wile ; but the very day before her departure she got a 
 scapular and died in it She had one sister, however, a good 
 crature, that did nothing but fast and pray, and make her sowL 
 
 1 In the other world.
 
 1 6 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 This woman had strong doubts upon her mind, and was very 
 much troubled as to whether or not her sister went to heaven ; 
 and she begged it as a favour from the blessed Virgin that the 
 state of her sister's sowl might be revaled to her. Her prayer 
 was granted. One night, about a week after her death, her 
 sister came back to her, dressed all in white, and circled round 
 by a veil of glory. 
 
 " ' Is that Mary ? ' said the living sister. 
 
 " ' It is,' said the other ; ' I have got liberty to appear to you,' 
 says she, 'and to tell you that I'm happy.' 
 
 " ' May the holy Virgin be praised ! ' said the other. ' Mary 
 dear, you have taken a great weight off of me,' says she ; ' I 
 thought you'd have a bad chance, in regard of the life you 
 led.' 
 
 " ' When I died,' said the spirit, ' and was on my way to the 
 other world, I came to a place where the road divided itself into 
 three parts: one to heaven, another to hell, and a third to 
 purgatory. There was a dark gulf between me and heaven, 
 and a breach between me and purgatory that I couldn't step 
 across, and if I had missed my foot there, I would have dropped 
 into hell. So I would, too, only that the blessed Virgin put my 
 own scapular over the breach, and it became firm, and I stepped 
 on it and got over. The Virgin then desired me to look into 
 hell, and the first person I saw was my own husband, standing 
 with a green sod under his feet. " He got that favour," said the 
 blessed Virgin, " in consequence of the prayers of a holy priest, 
 that had once been a poor scholar, that he gave assistance to at 
 a collection made for him in such a chapel," says she. Then," 
 continued the sow!, ' Mary,' says she, 'but there's some great 
 change in the world since I died, or why would the people live 
 so long? It can't be less than six thousand years since I 
 departed, and yet I find every one of my friends just as I left 
 them.' 
 
 " ' Why,' replied the living sister, 'you're only six days dead.' 
 
 " 'Ah, avourneen !' said the other, 'it can't be it can't be ! 
 for I have been thousands on thousands of years in pain ! ' and 
 as she spoke this she disappeared. 
 
 " Now, there's proof oi the pains of purgatory, where one day 
 seems as long as a thousand years ; and you know we oughtn't 
 to grudge a thrifle to a fellow-crature, that we may avoid it. So 
 you see, my friends, there's nothing like good works. You know 
 not when or where this lad's prayers may benefit you. If he 
 gets ordained, the first mass he says will be for his benefactors ; 
 and in every one he celebrates after that they must also be
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 17 
 
 remembered : the words arefiro omnibus benefactoribus meis, 
 per omnia secula seculorum! 
 
 " Thirdly hem ! I now lave the thing to yourselves. 
 
 " But wasn't I a match for Pether Donovan, that would brake 
 a stone for the marrow 1 Eh ? [A broad laugh at Peter's 
 rueful visage.] Pether, you Turk, will your heart never soften 
 will you never have dacency, an' you the only man of your 
 family that's so ? Sure they say you're going to be marrid 
 some of these days. Well, if you get your wife in my parish, I 
 tell you, Pether, I'll give you a fleecin', for don't think I'll marry 
 you as chape as I would a poor honest man. I'll make you 
 shell out the yallow boys, and 'tis that will go to your heart, you 
 nager, you ; and then I'll eat you out of house and home at the 
 stations. May the Lord grant us, in the manetime, a dacent 
 appetite, a blessing which I wish you all in the name of the," 
 etc. 
 
 At this moment the congregation was once more in con- 
 vulsions of laughter at the dressing which Peter, whose 
 character was drawn with much truth and humour, received 
 at the hands of the worthy pastor. 
 
 Our readers will perceive that there was not a single prejudice, 
 or weakness, or virtue in the disposition of his auditory left 
 untouched in this address. He moved their superstition, their 
 pride of character, their dread of hell and purgatory, their 
 detestation of Yellow Sam, and the remembrance of the injury 
 so wantonly inflicted on M'Evoy's family ; he glanced at the 
 advantage to be derived from the lad's prayers, the example 
 they should set to Protestants, made a passing hit at tithes, and 
 indulged in the humorous, the pathetic, and the miraculous. In 
 short, he left no avenue to their hearts untouched ; and in the 
 process by which he attempted to accomplish his object he was 
 successful. 
 
 1 I know not whether this may be considered worthy of a note or 
 not. I have myself frequently seen and tasted what is appropriately 
 termed by the peasantry " Stone Marrow." It is found in the heart of 
 a kind of soft granite, or perhaps I should rather say freestone. The 
 country people use it medicinally, but I cannot remember what par- 
 ticular disease it is said to cure. It is a soft saponaceous substance, 
 not unpleasant to the taste, of a bluish colour, and melts in the mouth 
 like the fat of cold meat, leaving the palate greasy. How far an 
 investigation into its nature and properties might be useful to the 
 geologist or physician it is not for me to conjecture. As the fact 
 appeared to be a curious one, and necessary, moreover, to illustrate the 
 expression used in the text, I thought it not amiss to mention it. It 
 may be a bonne bouche for the geologists.
 
 i8 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 There is, in fact, much rude, unpolished eloquence among the 
 Roman Catholic priesthood, and not a little which, if duly 
 cultivated by study and a more liberal education, would deserve 
 to be ranked very high. 
 
 We do not give this as a specimen of their modern pulpit 
 eloquence, but as a sample of that in which some of those Irish 
 clergy shone who, before the establishment of Maynooth, were 
 admitted to orders immediately from the hedge-schools, in con- 
 sequence of the dearth of priests which then existed in Ireland. 
 It was customary in those days to ordain them even before they 
 departed for the Continental colleges, in order that they might, 
 by saying masses and performing other clerical dutie?, be 
 enabled to add something to the scanty pittance which was 
 appropriated to their support. Of the class to which Father 
 Kavanagh belonged, there are few, if any, remaining. They 
 sometimes were called "hedge-priests," 1 byway of reproach; 
 though, for our own part, we wish their non-interference in 
 politics, unaffected piety, and simplicity of character had 
 remained behind them. 
 
 On the Sunday following, Dominick M'Evoy and his son 
 Jemmy attended mass, whilst the other members of the family, 
 with that sense of honest pride which is more strongly inherent 
 in Irish character than is generally supposed, remained at 
 home, from a reluctance to witness what they could not but 
 consider a degradation. This decency of feeling was antici- 
 pated by the priest, and not overlooked by the people ; for the 
 former, the reader may have observed, in the whole course of 
 his address never once mentioned the word " charity" ; nor did 
 the latter permit the circumstance to go without its reward, 
 according to the best of their ability. So keen and delicate 
 are the perceptions of the Irish, and so acutely alive are they 
 to those nice distinctions of kindness and courtesy, which have 
 in their hearts a spontaneous and sturdy growth that mocks at 
 the stunted virtues of artificial life. 
 
 In the parish of Ballysogarth there were three altars, or 
 places of Roman Catholic worship; and the reader may suppose 
 that the collection made at each place was considerable. In 
 truth, both father and son's anticipations were far under the 
 sum collected. Protestants and Presbyterians attended with 
 their contributions, and those of the latter who scrupled to be 
 present at what they considered to be an idolatrous worship 
 
 1 This nickname was first bestowed upon them by the Continental 
 priests, who generally ridiculed them for their vulgarity. They were, 
 for the most part, simple but worthy men.
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 19 
 
 did not hesitate to send their quota by some Roman Catholic 
 neighbour. Their names were accordingly announced with an 
 encomium from the priest, which never failed to excite a warm- 
 hearted murmur of approbation. Nor was this feeling transient ; 
 for we will venture to say that had political excitement flamed 
 up even to rebellion and mutual slaughter, the persons and 
 property of those individuals would have been held sacred. 
 
 At length Jemmy was equipped ; and sad and heavy became 
 the hearts of his parents and immediate relations as the morn- 
 ing appointed for his departure drew nigh. On the evening 
 before, several of his more distant relatives came to take their 
 farewell of him, and, in compliance with the usages of Irish 
 hospitality, they were detained for the night. They did not, 
 however, come empty-handed : some brought money ; some 
 brought linen, stockings, or small presents "Jist, Jimmy 
 asthore, to keep me in yer memory, sure an' nothin' else it 
 is for, mavourneen." 
 
 Except Jemmy himself, and one of his brothers, who was 
 to accompany him part of the way, none of the family slept. 
 The mother exhibited deep sorrow, and Dominick, although 
 he made a show of firmness, felt, now that the crisis was at 
 hand, nearly incapable of parting with the boy. The conver- 
 sation of their friends, and the cheering effects of the poteen, 
 enabled them to sustain their loss better than they otherwise 
 would have done, and the hope of seeing him one day "an 
 ordained priest" contributed more than either to support them. 
 
 When the night was nearly half spent, the mother took a 
 candle and privately withdrew to the room in which the boy 
 slept. The youth was fair, and interesting to look upon the 
 clustering locks of his white forehead were divided ; yet there 
 was on his otherwise open brow a shade of sorrow, produced 
 by the coming separation, which even sleep could not efface. 
 The mother held the candle gently towards his face, shading 
 it with one hand, lest the light might suddenly awake him ; 
 she then surveyed his features long and affectionately, whilst 
 the tears fell in showers from her cheeks. 
 
 'There you lie," she softly sobbed out in Irish, "the sweet 
 pulse of your mother's heart, the flower of our flock, the pride 
 of our eyes, and the music of our hearth ! Jimmy, avourneen 
 inachree, an' how can I part wid you, my darlin' son ! Sure 
 when I look at your mild face, and think that you're takin' the 
 world on your head to rise us out of our poverty, isn't my heart 
 brakin' ? A lonely house we'll have afther you, acushla ! 
 Coin' out an' comin' in, at home or abroad, your voice won't be
 
 2o THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 in my ears, nor your eye smilin' upon me ! An' thin to think 
 of what you may suffer in a sthrange land ! If your head aches, 
 on what tendher breast will it lie ? or who will bind the ribbon 
 of comfort 1 round it? or wipe your fair mild brow in sickness ? 
 Oh, blessed Mother, hunger, sickness, and sorrow may come 
 upon you, when yoitll be far from your own, art from them that 
 loves you ! " 
 
 This melancholy picture was too much for the tenderness of 
 the mother ; she sat down beside the bed, rested her face on 
 her open hand, and wept in subdued but bitter grief. At this 
 moment his father, who probably suspected the cause of her 
 absence, came in, and perceived her distress. 
 
 " Vara," said he, in Irish also, " is my darlin' son asleep?" 
 
 She looked up with streaming eyes as he spoke, and replied 
 to him with difficulty, whilst she involuntarily held over the 
 candle to gratify the father's heart by a sight of him. 
 
 " I was keepin' him before my eye," she said. " God knows 
 but it may be the last night we'll ever see him undher our own 
 roof ! Dominick, achora, I doubt I can't part wid him from my 
 heart." 
 
 "Then how can I, Vara?" he replied. "Wasn't he my right 
 hand in everything ? When was he from me, ever since he 
 took a man's work upon him ? And when he'd finish his own 
 task for the day, how kindly he'd begin an' help me wid mine 1 
 No, Vara, it goes to my heart to let him go away upon sich a 
 plan, an' I wish he hadn't taken the notion into his head at all." 
 
 " It's not too late, maybe," replied his mother. " I think it 
 wouldn't be hard to put him off of it ; the crathur's own heart's 
 failin' him to lave us he has sorrow upon his face where he 
 lies." 
 
 The father looked at the expression of affectionate melancholy 
 which shaded his features as he slept, and the perception of 
 the boy's internal struggle against his own domestic attachments 
 in accomplishing his first determination powerfully touched his 
 heart. 
 
 " Vara," said he, " I know the boy he won't give it up ; and 
 'twould be a pity maybe a sin to put him from it. Let the 
 child get fair-play, an' thry his coorse. If he fails he can come 
 back to us, an' our arms and hearts will be open to welcome 
 him ! But if God prospers him, wouldn't it be a blessin' that 
 we never expected to see him in the white robes, celebratin' one 
 
 1 This alludes to a charm performed by certain persons, which, by 
 means of a ribbon, is said to cure headaches in Ireland. It is called 
 " measuring the head."
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 21 
 
 mass for his paarents ? If these ould eyes could see that, I 
 would be continted to close them in pace an' happiness for 
 ever." 
 
 " An' well you'd become them, avourneen machree ! Well 
 would your mild and handsome countenance look wid the long 
 heavenly stole of innocence upon you ! and although it's atin' 
 into my heart, I'll bear it for the sake of seem' the same blessed 
 sight. Look at that face, Dominick ; mightn't many a lord of 
 the land be proud to have such a son ? May the heavens shower 
 down its blessin' upon him ! " 
 
 The father burst into tears. " It is it is ! " said he. " It is 
 the face that ud make many a noble heart proud to look at it 1 
 Is it any wondher it ud cut our hearts, thin, to have it taken 
 from afore our eyes ? Come away, Vara come away, or I'll 
 not be able to part wid it. It is the lovely face an' kind is the 
 heart of my darlin' child." As he spoke he stooped down and 
 kissed the youth's cheek, on which the warm tears of affection 
 fell soft as the dew from heaven. The mother followed his 
 example, and they both left the room. 
 
 " We must bear it," said Dominick, as they passed into another 
 apartment; "the money's gathered, an' it wouldn't look well to 
 be goin' back wid it to them that befrinded us. We'd have the 
 blush upon our face for it, an' the child no advantage." 
 
 " Thrue for you, Dominick ; and we must make up our minds 
 to live widout him for a while." 
 
 The following morning was dark and cloudy, but calm and 
 without rain. When the family were all assembled, every 
 member of it evinced traces of deep feeling, and every eye was 
 fixed upon the serene but melancholy countenance of the boy 
 with tenderness and sorrow. He himself maintained a quiet 
 equanimity, which, though apparently liable to be broken by the 
 struggles of domestic affection, and in character with his meek 
 and unassuming disposition, yet was supported by more firmness 
 than might be expected from a mind in which kindness and 
 sensibility were so strongly predominant. At this time, however, 
 his character was not developed, or at least not understood by 
 those that surrounded him. To strong feelings and enduring 
 affections he added a keenness of perception and a bitterness of 
 invective, of which, in his conversation with his father concerning 
 Yellow Sam, the reader has already had sufficient proofs. At 
 breakfast little or nothing was eaten ; the boy himself could not 
 taste a morsel, nor any other person in the family. When the 
 form of the meal was over, the father knelt down. " It's right," 
 said he, "that we should all go to our knees, and join in a
 
 22 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 Rosary in behalf of the child that's goin' on a good intintion. 
 He won't thrive the worse bekase the last words that he'll hear 
 from his father and mother's lips is a prayer for bringin' the 
 blessin' of God down upon his endayvours." 
 
 This was accordingly performed, though not without tears 
 and sobs and frequent demonstrations of grief ; for religion 
 among the peasantry is often associated with bursts of deep and 
 powerful feeling. 
 
 When the prayer was over, the boy rose and calmly strapped 
 to his back a satchel covered with deer-skin, containing a few 
 books, linen, and a change of very plain apparel. While engaged 
 in this the uproar of grief in the house was perfectly heartrending. 
 When just ready to set out, he reverently took off his hat, knelt 
 down, and, with tears streaming from his eyes, craved humbly 
 and meekly the blessing and forgiveness of his father and mother. 
 The mother caught him in her arms, kissed his lips, and, kneeling 
 also, sobbed out a fervent benediction upon his head ; the father 
 now, in the grief of a strong man, pressed him to his heart until 
 the big, burning tears fell upon the boy's face ; his brothers and 
 sisters embraced him wildly ; next his more distant relations ; 
 and lastly the neighbours who were crowded about the door. 
 After this he took a light staff in his hand, and, first blessing 
 himself after the form of his Church, proceeded to a strange land 
 in quest of education. 
 
 He had not gone more than a few perches from the door 
 when his mother followed him with a small bottle of holy water. 
 "Jimmy, a lanna voght" 1 said she, "here's this, an' carry it 
 about you it will keep evil from you ; an' be sure to take good 
 care of the written correckther you got from the priest and 
 Square Benson ; an', darlin', don't be lookin' too often at the 
 cuff o' your coat, for feard the people might get a notion that 
 you have the bank-notes sewed in it. An', Jimmy agra, don't 
 be too lavish upon their Munster crame ; they say it's apt to 
 give people the ague. Kiss me agin, agra ; an' the heavens 
 above keep you safe and well till we see you once more ! " 
 
 She then tenderly, and still with melancholy pride, settled 
 his shirt collar, which she thought did not sit well about his 
 neck ; and kissing him again, with renewed sorrow, left him to 
 pursue his journey. 
 
 M'Evoy's house was situated on the side of a dark hill one 
 of that barren description which can be called neither inland 
 nor mountain. It commanded a wide and extended prospect, 
 
 1 My poor child.
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 23 
 
 and the road along which the lad travelled was visible for a 
 considerable distance from it. On a small hillock before the 
 door sat Dominick and his wife, who, as long as their son was 
 visible, kept their eyes, which were nearly blinded with tears, 
 riveted upon his person. It was now they gave full vent to 
 their grief, and discussed, with painful and melancholy satisfac- 
 tion, all the excellent qualities which he possessed. As James 
 himself advanced, one neighbour after another fell away from 
 the train which accompanied him, not, however, until they had 
 affectionately embraced and bid him adieu, and perhaps 
 slipped with peculiar delicacy an additional mite into his 
 waistcoat pocket. After the neighbours, then followed the 
 gradual separation from his friends one by one left him, as in 
 the great journey of life, and in a few hours he found himself 
 accompanied only by his favourite brother. 
 
 This to him was the greatest trial he had yet felt ; long and 
 heartrending was their embrace. Jemmy soothed and com- 
 forted his beloved brother, but in vain. The lad threw himself 
 on the spot at which they parted, and remained there until 
 Jemmy turned an angle of the road which brought him out of 
 his sight, when the poor boy kissed the marks of his brother's 
 feet repeatedly, and then returned home, hoarse and broken 
 down with the violence of his grief. 
 
 He was now alone, and for the first time felt keenly the 
 strange object on which he was bent, together with all the 
 difficulties connected with its attainment. He was young and 
 uneducated, and many years, he knew, must elapse ere he 
 could find himself in possession of his wishes. But time would 
 pass at home as well as abroad, he thought ; and as there lay 
 no impediment of peculiar difficulty in his way, he collected all 
 his firmness and proceeded. 
 
 There is no country on the earth in which either education, 
 or the desire to procure it, is so much reverenced as in Ireland. 
 Next to the claims of the priest and schoolmaster come those 
 of the poor scholar for the respect of the people. It matters 
 not how poor or how miserable he may be, so long as they see 
 him struggling with poverty in the prosecution of a purpose 
 so laudable, they will treat him with attention and kindness. 
 Here there is no danger of his being sent to the workhouse, 
 committed as a vagrant, or passed from parish to parish, until 
 he reaches his own settlement. Here the humble lad is not 
 met by the sneer of purse-proud insolence, or his simple tale 
 answered only by the frown of heartless contempt. No no 
 no. The best bit and sup are placed before him ; and whilst
 
 24 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 his poor but warm-hearted entertainer can afford only potatoes 
 and salt to his own half-starved family, he will make a struggle 
 to procure something better for the poor scholar, " bekase he's 
 far from his own, the crathur! An' sure the intintion in him is 
 good, anyhow ; the Lord prosper him, an" every one that has 
 the heart set upon the larnin' ! " 
 
 As Jemmy proceeded, he found that his satchel of books and 
 apparel gave as clear an intimation of his purpose as if he had 
 carried a label to that effect upon his back. 
 
 "God save you, a bouchall" said a warm, honest-looking 
 countryman whom he met driving home his cows in the 
 evening, within a few miles of the town in which he purposed 
 to sleep. 
 
 " God save you kindly ! " 
 
 " Why, thin, 'tis a long journey you have before you, alanna, 
 for I know well it's for Munster you're bound." 
 
 " Thrue for you, 'tis there, wid the help of God, I'm goin'. 
 A great scarcity of larnin' was in my own place, or I wouldn't 
 have to go at all," said the boy, whilst his eyes filled with tears. 
 
 "'Tis no discredit in life," replied the countryman, with 
 untaught natural delicacy, for he perceived that a sense of pride 
 lingered about the boy, which made the character of poor 
 scholar sit painfully upon him; "'tis no discredit, dear, nor 
 don't be cast down. I'll warrant you that God will prosper 
 you ; an' that he may, avick, I pray this day 1 " and as he spoke 
 he raised his hat in reverence to the Being whom he invoked. 
 "An" tell me, dear where do you intend to sleep to-night?" 
 
 " In the town forrid here," replied Jemmy. " I'm in hopes 
 I'll be able to reach it before dark." 
 
 " Pooh 1 asy you will. Have you any friends or acquaint- 
 ances there that ud welcome you, a bouchal dhas (my handsome 
 boy)?" 
 
 " No, indeed," said Jemmy, " they're all strangers to me ; but 
 I can stop in 'dhry lodgin',' for it's chaper." 
 
 " Well, alanna, I believe you ; but I'm no stranger to you 
 so come home wid me to-night ; where you'll get a good bed, 
 an" betther thratement nor in any of their dhry lodgin's. Give 
 me your books, an' I'll carry them for you. Ethen, but you 
 have a great batch o' them entirely. Can you make any hand 
 o' the Latin at all yet?" 
 
 " No, indeed,'' replied Jemmy, somewhat sorrowfully ; " I 
 didn't ever open a Latin book, at all at all." 
 
 " Well, acushla, everything has a beginnin' ; you won't be long. 
 An' I know by your face that you'll be bright at it, an' a credit
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 25 
 
 to them that owes 1 you. There's my house in the fields beyant, 
 where you'll be well kept for one night, anyway, or for twinty, 
 or for ten times twinty, if you wanted them." 
 
 The honest farmer then commenced the song of Colleen dhas 
 Crotha na Mho? which he sang in a clear, mellow voice, until 
 they reached the house. 
 
 " Alley,'' said the man to his wife on entering, " here's a 
 stranger I've brought you." 
 
 " Well," replied Alley, " he's welcome sure, anyway. Kead 
 millia failta ghud, alanna ! sit over to the fire. Brian, get up, 
 dear," said she to one of the children, " an' let the stranger to 
 the hob." 
 
 " He's goin' on a good errand, the Lord bless him ! " said the 
 husband ; " up the country for the larnin'. Put thim books 
 over on the settle ; an' whin the girshas are done milkin', give 
 him a brave dhrink of the sweet milk ; it's the stuff to thravel 
 on." 
 
 " Throth, an' I will, wid a heart an' a half, wishin' it was 
 betther I had to give him. Here, Nelly, put down a pot o' 
 wather, an' lave soap an' a praskeen, afore you go to milk, till I 
 bathe the dacent boy's feet. Sore an' tired they are after his 
 journey, poor young crather." 
 
 When Jemmy placed himself upon the hob, he saw that some 
 peculiarly good fortune had conducted him to so comfortable a 
 resting-place. He considered this as a good omen, and felt, in 
 fact, much relieved, for the sense of loneliness among strangers 
 was removed. 
 
 The house evidently belonged to a wealthy farmer, well to do 
 in the world ; the chimney was studded with sides upon sides 
 of yellow smoke-dried bacon, hams, and hung beef in abund- 
 ance. The kitchen tables were large, and white as milk, and 
 the dresser rich in its shining array of delf and pewter ; every- 
 thing, in fact, was upon a large scale. Huge meal chests were 
 ranged on one side, and two or three settle beds on the other, 
 conspicuous, as I have said, for their uncommon cleanliness ; 
 whilst hung from the ceiling were the glaiks, a machine for 
 churning ; and beside the dresser stood an immense churn, 
 certainly too unwieldy to be managed except by machinery. 
 The farmer was a ruddy-faced Milesian, who wore a drab frieze 
 coat, with a velvet collar, buff waistcoat, corduroy small-clothes, 
 and top-boots well greased from the tops down. 3 He was not 
 
 1 Owns. 2 The pretty girl milking her cow. 
 
 3 This, almost in every instance, is the dress of a wealthy Irish 
 farmer.
 
 26 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 only an agriculturist, but a grazier, remarkable for shrewdness 
 and good sense, generally attended fairs and markets, and 
 brought three or four large droves of fat cattle to England 
 every year. From his fob hung the brass chain and almost 
 rusty key of a watch, which he kept certainly more for use than 
 ornament. 
 
 "A little sup o' this," said he, "won't take your life," approach- 
 ing Jemmy with a bottle of as good poteen as ever escaped the 
 eye of an exciseman ; " it'll refresh you, for you're tired, or I 
 wouldn't offer it rason that one bint on what you're bint on 
 oughtn't to be makin' freedoms wid the same dhrink. But 
 there's a time for everything, an' there's a time for this. Thank 
 you, agra," he added, in reply to Jemmy, who had drank his 
 health. " Now, don't be frettin', but make yourself as aisy as 
 if you were at your own father's hearth. You'll have everything 
 to your heart's contint for this night ; the carts are goin' into 
 the market to-morrow arly you can sit upon them, an' maybe 
 you'll get somethin' more nor you expect. Sure the Lord has 
 given it to me, an" why wouldn't I share it wid them that wants 
 it more nor I do?" 
 
 The lad's heart yearned to the generous farmer, for he felt 
 that his kindness had the stamp of truth and sincerity upon it. 
 He could only raise his eyes in a silent prayer that none 
 belonging to him might ever be compelled, as strangers and 
 wayfarers, to commit themselves, as he did, to the casualties 
 of life, in pursuit of those attainments which poverty cannot 
 otherwise command. Fervent, indeed, was his prayer ; and 
 certain we are that, because it was sincere, it must have been 
 heard. 
 
 In the meantime the good woman, or vanithef, had got the 
 pot of water warmed, in which Jemmy was made ^o put his 
 feet She then stripped up her arms to the elbows, and, with 
 soap and seedy meal, affectionately bathed his legs and feet ; 
 then taking the praskeen, or coarse towel, she wiped them with 
 a kindness which thrilled to his heart. 
 
 " And now," said she, " I must give you a cure for blisthers, 
 an' it's this : in the mornin', if we're all spared, as we will, 
 plase the Almighty, I'll give you a needle an' some white 
 woollen thread, well soaped. When your blisthers gets up, 
 dhraw the soapy thread through them, clip it on each side, an', 
 my life for yours, they won't throuble you. Sure I thried it the 
 year I went on my station to Lough Derg, an' I know it to be 
 the rale cure." 
 
 " Here, Nelly," said the farmer who sat with a placid,
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 27 
 
 benevolent face, smoking his pipe on the opposite hob to one 
 of the maids who came in from milking, " bring up a noggin 
 of that milk ; we want it here. Let it be none of your washy 
 foremilk, but the strippins, Nelly, that has the strinth in it 
 Up wid it here, a colleen." 
 
 " The never a one o' the man bur's doatin' downright, so he 
 is," observed the wife, " to go to fill the tired child's stomach 
 wid plash. Can't you wait till he ates a thrifle o' somethin' stout, 
 to keep life in him, after his hard journey? Does your feet feel 
 themselves cool an' asy now, a hagur?'' 
 
 " Indeed," said Jemmy, " I'm almost as fresh as when I set 
 out. 'Twas little thought I had, when I came away this 
 mornin', that I'd meet wid so much friendship on my journey. 
 I hope it's a sign that God's on my side in my undertakin' I" 
 
 " I hope so, avourneen I hope so, an' it is, too," replied the 
 farmer, taking the pipe out of his mouth, and mildly whiffing 
 away the smoke, " an' God '11 be always on your side, as long 
 as your intentions are good. Now ate somethin' you must 
 want it by this ; an' thin, when you rest yourself bravely, take a 
 tass into a good feather-bed, where you can sleep rings round 
 you. 1 Who knows but you'll be able to say mass for me or 
 some o' my family yit. God grant that, anyway, avick ! " 
 
 Poor James's heart was too full to eat much ; he took, there- 
 fore, only a very slender portion of the refreshments set before 
 him; but his hospitable entertainers had no notion of per- 
 mitting him to use the free exercise of his discretion on this 
 important point. When James put away the knife and fork, as 
 an indication of his having concluded the meal, the farmer and 
 his wife turned about, both at the same moment, with a kind of 
 astonishment. 
 
 " Eh ? is it givin' over that way you are ? Why, alanna, it's 
 nothin' at all you've tuck ; sure little Brian there would make a 
 fool of you, so he would, at the atin'. Come, come, a bouchal; 
 don't be ashamed, or make any way sthrange at all, but ate 
 hearty." 
 
 " I declare I have ate heartily, thank you," replied James ; 
 " oceans itself, so I did. I couldn't swally a bit more if the 
 house was full." 
 
 " Arrah, Brian," said the wife, " cut him up more o' that hung 
 beef; it's ashamed the crathur is ! Take it, avick ; don't we 
 know the journey you had ? Faix, if one o' the boys was out on 
 a day's thravellin', you'd see how he'd handle himself." 
 
 1 As much as you please.
 
 28 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 " Indeed," said James, " I can't; if I could I would. Sure I 
 would be no way backward at all, so I wouldn't." 
 
 " Throth, an' you can an' must," said the farmer; " the never 
 a rise you'll rise till you finish that," putting over a comple- 
 ment out of all reasonable proportion with his age and size. 
 
 " There now's a small taste, an' you must finish it. To go to 
 ate nothin' at all. Hut tut ! by the tops o' my boots, you 
 must put that clear an' clane out o' sight, or I'll go mad and 
 burn them." 
 
 The lad recommenced, and continued to eat as long as he 
 could possibly hold out ; at length he ceased. 
 
 " I can't go on," said he ; "don't ax me I can't, indeed." 
 
 " Bad manners to the word I'll hear till you finish it ; you 
 know it's but a thrifle to spake of. Thry agin, avick, but take 
 your time ; you'll be able for it." 
 
 The poor lad's heart was engaged on other thoughts and 
 other scenes his home, and its beloved inmates ; sorrow and 
 the gush of young affections were ready to burst forth. 
 
 " I cannot ate,'' said he, and he looked imploringly on the 
 farmer and his wife, whilst the tears started to his eyes ; " don't 
 ax me, for my heart's wid them I left behind me, that I may 
 never see agin ;" and he wept in a burst of grief which he 
 could not restrain. 
 
 Neither the strength nor tenderness of the lad's affection 
 was unappreciated by this excellent couple. In a moment the 
 farmer's wife was also in tears ; nor did her husband break the 
 silence for some minutes. 
 
 "The Almighty pity an' strengthen him!" said the wife; 
 " but he has the good an' the kind heart, an' would be a credit 
 to any family. Whisht, acushla machree whisht, we won't ax 
 you to ate no, indeed. It was out o' kindness we did it don't 
 be cast down aither ; sure it isn't the ocean you're crossin', but 
 goin' from one county like to another. God '11 guard an' take 
 care o' you, so he will. Your intintion's good, an' he'll 
 prosper it." 
 
 " He will, avick," said the farmer himself, " he will. Cheer 
 up, my good boy ! I know thim that's larned an' creditable 
 clargy this day, that went as you're goin' ay, an' that ris an' 
 helped their paarents, an' put them above poverty an' distress ; 
 an' never fear, wid a blessing, but you'll do the same." 
 
 " That's what brings me at all," replied the boy, drying his 
 tears; "if I was once able to take them out o' their distresses 
 I'd be happy only I'm afeard the cares o' the world will break 
 my father's heart before I have it in my power to assist him."
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 29 
 
 " No such thing, darlin'," said the good woman. " Sure his 
 hopes out o' you, an' his love for you will keep him up; an' you 
 dunna but God may give him a blessin' too, avick." 
 
 " Mix another sup o' that for him," said the farmer ; " he's 
 low-spirited, an' it's too strong to give him any more of it as it 
 is. Childhre, where's the masther from us eh ? Why, thin, 
 God help them, the crathurs wasn't it thoughtful' 1 o' them to 
 lave the place while he was at his dinner, for fraid he'd be 
 dashed manin' them young crathurs, Alley. But can you tell 
 us where the masther is? Isn't this his night wid us? I know 
 he tuck his dinner here." 
 
 " Ay did he ; but it's up to Larry Murphy's he's gone, to thry 
 his son in his book-keepin'. Mavrone, but he had time enough 
 to put him well through it afore this, anyway." 
 
 As she spoke a short, thick-set man, with black twinkling 
 eyes and ruddy cheeks, entered. This personage was no other 
 than the schoolmaster of that district, who circulated, like a 
 newspaper, from one farmer's house to another, in order to 
 expound for his kind entertainers the news of the day, his own 
 learning, and the very evident extent of their ignorance. 
 
 The moment he came in the farmer and his wife rose with an 
 air of much deference, and placed a chair for him exactly 
 opposite the fire, leaving a respectful distance on each side, 
 within which no illiterate mortal durst presume to sit. 
 
 " Misther Corcoran," said the farmer, presenting Jemmy's 
 satchel, through which the shapes of the books were quite 
 plain, " thig in thu shinn?" z and as he spoke he looked 
 significantly at its owner. 
 
 " Ah ! " replied the man of letters, " thigum, thigum. God 
 be wid the day when I carried the likes of it. 'Tis a badge of 
 polite genius, that no boy need be ashamed of. So, my young 
 suckling of litherature, you're bound for Munster ? for that 
 counthry where the swallows fly in conic sections where the 
 magpies and the turkeys confab in Latin, and the cows and 
 bullocks will roar you Doric Greek bo-a-o clamo. What's 
 your pathronymic? quo nomine gowdes, Domine doctissime?" 
 
 The lad was silent ; but the farmer's wife turned up the 
 whites of her eyes with an expression of wonder and surprise 
 at the erudition of the " masther." 
 
 " I persave you are as yet uninitiated into the elementary 
 principia of the languages; well, the honour is still before you. 
 What's your name ? " 
 
 1 Considerate. 2 You understand this ? 
 
 4
 
 30 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 " James M'Evoy, sir." 
 
 Just now the farmer's family began to assemble round the 
 spacious hearth ; the young lads, whose instruction the worthy 
 teacher claimed as his own peculiar task, came timidly forward, 
 together with two or three pretty, bashful girls, with sweet, 
 flashing eyes, and countenances full of feeling and intelligence. 
 Behind, on the settles, half-a-dozen servants of both sexes sat in 
 pairs each boy placing himself beside his favourite girl. These 
 appeared to be as strongly interested in the learned conversa- 
 tion which the master held as if they were masters and 
 mistresses of Munster Latin and Doric Greek themselves; but 
 an occasional thump cautiously bestowed by no slender female 
 hand upon the sturdy shoulder of her companion, or a dry 
 cough from one of the young men, fabricated to drown the 
 coming blow, gave slight indications that they contrived to have 
 a little amusement among themselves, altogether independent 
 of Mr. Corcoran's erudition'. 
 
 When the latter came in, Jemmy was taking the tumbler of 
 punch which the farmer's wife had mixed for him ; on this he 
 fixed an expressive glance, which instantly reverted to the 
 vanilhee, and from her to the large bottle which stood in a 
 window to the right of the fire. It is a quick eye, however, that 
 can anticipate Irish hospitality. 
 
 " Alley," said the farmer, ere the wife had time to comply with 
 the hint conveyed by the black, twinkling eye of the school- 
 master " why, Alley " 
 
 " Sure, I am," she replied, " an' will have it for you in less 
 than no time." 
 
 She accordingly addressed herself to the bottle, and in a few 
 minutes handed a reeking jug of punch to the Farithee, or good 
 man. 
 
 " Come, masther, by the hand o' my body, I don't like dhry 
 talk so long as I can get anything to moisten the discoorse. 
 Here's your health, masther," continued the farmer, winking at 
 the rest, " and a speedy conclusion to what you know 1 In 
 throth, she's the pick of a good girl not to mintion what 
 she has for her portion. I'm a frind to the same family, 
 and will put a spoke in your wheel, masther, that'll sarve 
 you." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Lanigan, very well, sir very well you're becoming 
 quite facetious upon me," said the little man, rather confused ; 
 ' but upon my credit and reputation, except the amorous 
 inclination in regard to me is on her side" and he looked 
 sheepishly at his hands" I can't say that the arrows of Cupid
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 31 
 
 have as yet pinethrated the sintimintal side of my heart. It is 
 not wid me as it was wid Dido hem ! 
 
 " ' Non hseret lateri lethalis arundo,' 
 
 as Virgil says. Yet I can't say but if a friend were to become 
 spokesman for me, and insinuate in my behalf a small taste of 
 amorous sintimintality, why hem, hem, hem ! The company's 
 health 1 Lad James M'Evoy, j0#r health, and success to you, 
 my good boy ! hem, hem ! " 
 
 " Here's wishin' him the same 1" said the farmer. 
 
 "James," said the schoolmaster, " you are goin' to Munsther, 
 an' I can say that I have travelled it from end to end, not to a 
 bad purpose, I hope hem 1 Well, a bouchal, there are hard 
 days and nights before you, so keep a firm heart. If you have 
 money, as 'tis likely you have, don't let a single rap of it into the 
 hands of the schoolmaster, although the first thing he'll do will 
 be to bring you home to his own house, and palaver you night 
 an' day till he succeeds in persuading you to leave it in his 
 hands for security. You might, if not duly pre-admonished, 
 surrender it to his solicitations, for 
 
 " ' Nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit.' 
 
 Michael, what case is mortalium f" added he, suddenly 
 addressing one of the farmer's sons. " Come now, Michael, 
 where's your brightness ? What case is mortalium f" 
 
 The boy was taken by surprise, and for a few minutes could 
 not reply. 
 
 " Come, man," said the father, " be sharp, spake out bravely, 
 an' don't be afeard : nor don't be in a hurry aither ; we'll wait 
 for you." 
 
 " Let him alone let him alone," said Corcoran ; " I'll face the 
 same boy agin the country for cuteness. If he doesn't expound 
 that, I'll never consthre a line of Latin, or Greek, or Masoretic, 
 while I'm livin'." 
 
 His cunning master knew right well that the boy, who was 
 only confused at the suddenness of the question, would feel no 
 difficulty in answering it to his satisfaction. Indeed, it was 
 impossible for him to miss it, as he was then reading the 
 seventh book of Virgil and the fourth of Homer. It is, how- 
 ever, a trick with such masters to put simple questions of that 
 nature to their pupils, when at the houses of their parents, as 
 knotty and difficult, and, when they are answered, to assume an
 
 32 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 air of astonishment at the profound reach of thought displayed 
 by the pupil. 
 
 When Michael recovered himself he instantly replied, " Mor- 
 talium is the ginitive case of nemo, by l Nomina Parlitiva?'" 
 
 Corcoran laid down the tumbler, which he was in the act of 
 raising to his lips, and looked at the lad with an air of surprise 
 and delight, then at the farmer and his wife alternately, and 
 shook his head with much mystery. " Michael," said he to the 
 lad, " will you go out and tell us what the night's doin' ?" 
 
 The boy accordingly went out. " Why," said Corcoran, in 
 his absence, " if ever there was a phanix, and that boy will be 
 the bird an Irish phanix he will be ; a 
 
 " ' Kara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno ! ' 
 
 There's no batin' him at anything he undhertakes. Why, 
 there's thim that are makin' good bread by their larnin' that 
 couldn't resolve that ; and you all saw how he did it widout the 
 book ! Why, if he goes on at this rate, I'm afraid he'll soon be 
 too many for myself ! hem ! " 
 
 " Too many for yourself 1 Fill the masther's tumbler, Alley. 
 Too many for yourself ! No, no ! I doubt he'll never see that 
 day, bright as he is, an' cute. That's it put a hape upon it. 
 Give me your hand, masther. I thank you for your attintion to 
 him ; an' the boy is a credit to us. Come over, Michael, 
 avourneen. Here, take what's in this tumbler, an' finish it. Be 
 a good boy, an' mind your lessons, an' do everything the 
 masther here the Lord bless him ! bids you ; an' you'll never 
 want a frind, masther, nor a dinner, nor a bed, nor a guinea, 
 while the Lord spares me aither the one or the other." 
 
 " I know it, Mr. Lanigan, I know it ; and I will make that 
 boy the pride o' Ireland, if I'm spared. I'll show him cramboes 
 that would puzzle the great Scaliger himself ; and many other 
 difficulties I'll let him into that I have never let out yet, except 
 to Tim Kearney, that bate them all at Thrinity College up in 
 Dublin last June." 
 
 " Arrah, how was that, masther ? " 
 
 " Tim, you see, went in to his entrance examinayshuns, and 
 one of the Fellows came to examine him, but a divil a long time 
 it was till Tim sacked him. 
 
 " ' Go back agin,' says Tim, ' and sind some one that's able to 
 tache me, for you're not.'' 
 
 " So another greater scholar agin came to thry Tim, and did 
 thry him, and Tim made a hare of him, before all that was
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 33 
 
 in the place five or six thousand ladies and gintlemen, at 
 laste ! 
 
 " The great lamed Fellows thin began to look odd enough ; 
 so they picked out the best scholar among them but one, and 
 slipped him at Tim ; but well becomes Tim, the never a long 
 time it was till he had him too as dumb as a post. The Fellow 
 went back. 
 
 " ' Gintlemen,' says he to the rest, ' we'll be disgraced all out,' 
 says he, 'for, except the Prowost sacks that Munsther spalpeen, 
 he'll bate us all, an' we'll never be able to hould up our heads 
 afther.' 
 
 "Accordingly, the Prowost attacks Tim ; and such a meetin' 
 as they had never was seen in Thrinity College since its estab- 
 lishment. At last, when they had been nine hours and a half at 
 it, the Prowost put one word to him that Tim couldn't expound, 
 so he lost it by one word only. For the last two hours the 
 Prowost carried an the examinayshun in Hebrew, thinking, you 
 see, that he had Tim there ; but he was mistaken, for Tim 
 answered him in good Munsther Irish, and it so happened that 
 they understood each other, for the two languages are first 
 cousins, or, at all evints, close blood relations. Tim was then 
 pronounced to be the best scholar in Ireland except the Pro- 
 wost; though, among ourselves, they might have thought of the 
 man that taught him. That, however, wasn't all. A young 
 lady fell in love wid Tim, and is to make him a present of 
 herself and her great fortune (three estates) the moment he 
 becomes a counsellor ; and in the meantime she allows him thirty 
 pounds a year to bear his expenses and live like a gintleman. 
 
 " Now to return to the youth in the corner: Nemo mortalium 
 omnibus horis sapit. Jemmy, keep your money, or give it to 
 the priest to keep, and it will be safest; but by no means let the 
 Hyblean honey of the schoolmaster's blarney deprive you of it, 
 otherwise it will be a vale, -vale, longum vale between you. 
 Crede experto!" 
 
 " Masther," said the farmer, " many a strange accident you 
 met wid on yer thravels through Munsther?" 
 
 " No doubt of that, Mr. Lanigan. I and another boy 
 thravelled it in society together. One day we were walking 
 towards a gintleman's house on the roadside, and it happened 
 that we met the owner of it in the vicinity, although we didn't 
 know him to be such. 
 
 " ' Salvete Domini!'* said he, in good fresh Latin. 
 
 " ' Tu sis salvus, quoquef said I to him, for my comrade 
 wasn't cute, and I was always orathor.
 
 34 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 " ' Unde -veniti 's ? ' said he, comin' over us wid another deep 
 piece of larnin', the construction of which was ' Where do yees 
 come from ? ' 
 
 " I replied, ' Per varies casus et tot discrimina rerum^ 
 venimus a Mayo! 
 
 " ' Good 1 ' said he ; ' you're bright ; follow me.' 
 
 " So he brought us over to his own house, and ordered us 
 bread and cheese and a posset; for it was Friday, an' we 
 couldn't touch mate. He, in the manetime, sat an' chatted 
 along wid us. The thievin' cook, however, in making the 
 posset, kept the curds to herself, except a slight taste here and 
 there that floated on the top ; but she was liberal enough of the 
 whey, anyhow. 
 
 " Now I had been well trained to fishing in my more youthful 
 days ; and no gorsoon could grope a trout wid me. I accord- 
 ingly sent the spoon through the pond before me wid the skill 
 of a connoisseur ; but to no purpose it came up wid nothin' 
 but the whey. 
 
 " So said I off-hand to the gintleman, houlding up the bowl, 
 and looking at it with a disappointed face 
 
 " ' Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto.' 
 
 ' This,' says I, ' plase your hospitality, may be Pactolus, but the 
 divil a taste o' the proper sand is in the bottom of it.' 
 
 " The wit of this, you see, pleased him, and we got an 
 excellent treat in his sludium, or study ; for he was determined 
 to give myself another trial. 
 
 " ' What's the wickedest line in Virgil ? ' said he. 
 
 " Now I had Virgil at my finger ends, so I answered him 
 
 " ' Flectere si nequeo super os, Acheronta movebo.' 1 
 
 "'Very good,' said he, 'you have the genius, and will come 
 to somethin' yet ; now tell me the most moral line in Virgil.' 
 " I answered 
 
 " ' Disctre justitiam moniti, et non temnere divas' ^ 
 
 " ' Depend upon it,' said he, ' you will be a luminary. The 
 morning star will be but a farthing candle to you ; and if you 
 
 1 He is evidently drawing the long bow here; this anecdote has 
 been told before.
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 35 
 
 take in the learning as you do the cheese, in a short time there 
 won't be a man in Munsther fit to teach you,' and he laughed, 
 for you see he had a tendency to jocosity. 
 
 " He did not give me up here, however, being determined to 
 go deeper wid me. 
 
 " ' Can you translate a newspaper into Latin prose ? ' said he. 
 
 " Now the divil a one o' me was just then sure about the 
 prose, so I was goin' to tell him ; but before I had time to 
 speak he thrust the paper into my hand, and desired me to 
 thranslate half-a-dozen barbarous advertisements. 
 
 "The first that met me was about a reward offered for a 
 Newfoundland dog and a terrier, that had been stolen from 
 a fishing-tackle manufacturer, and then came a list of his shabby 
 merchandise, ending with a long-winded encomium upon his 
 gunpowder, shot, and double-barrelled guns. Now may I be 
 shot wid a blank cartridge if I ever felt so much at an amplush 
 in my life, and I said so. 
 
 "'Your honour has hooked me wid the fishing-hooks,' said 
 I ; ' but I grant the cheese was good bait, anyhow.' 
 
 " So he laughed heartily, and bid me go on. 
 
 " Well, I thought the first was difficult ; but the second was 
 Masoretic to it something about drawbacks, excisemen, and 
 a long custom-house list, that would puzzle Publius Virgilius 
 Maro, if he was set to translate it. However, I went through 
 wid it as well as I could ; where I couldn't find Latin I laid in 
 the Greek, and where the Greek failed me I gave the Irish, 
 which, to tell the truth, in consequence of its vernacularity, 
 I found to be the most convanient. Och, och, many a lamed 
 scrimmage I have signalised myself in during my time. Sure 
 my name's as common as a mail-coach in Thrinity College ; 
 and 'tis well known there isn't a Fellow in it but I could 
 sack, except maybe the Prowost. That's their own opinion. 
 'Corcoran,' says the Prowost, 'is the most larned man in 
 Ireland; an' I'm not ashamed,' says he, 'to acknowledge that 
 I'd rather decline meeting him upon deep points.' Ginteels, all 
 your healths hem 1 But among ourselves I could bog him in 
 a very short time ; though I'd scorn to deprive the gintleman of 
 his reputation or his place, even if he sent me a challenge of 
 larnin' to-morrow, although he's too cute to venture on doing 
 that hem, hem ! " 
 
 To hear an obscure creature, whose name was but faintly 
 known in the remote parts even of the parish in which he lived, 
 draw the long bow at such a rate was highly amusing. The 
 credulous character of his auditory, however, was no slight
 
 36 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 temptation to him ; for he knew that next to the legends of 
 their saints, or the Gospel itself, his fictions ranked in authen- 
 ticity ; and he was determined that it should not be his fault 
 if their opinion of his learning and talents was not raised to 
 the highest point. 
 
 The feeling experienced by the poor scholar when he awoke 
 the next morning was one both of satisfaction and sorrow. He 
 thought once more of his home and kindred, and reflected that 
 it might be possible he had seen the last of his beloved relations. 
 His grief, however, was checked when he remembered the 
 warm and paternal affection with which he was received on the 
 preceding night by his hospitable countryman. He offered up 
 his prayers to God ; humbly besought his grace and protection ; 
 nor did he forget to implore a blessing upon those who had 
 thus soothed his early sorrows, and afforded him, though a 
 stranger and friendless, shelter, comfort, and sympathy. 
 
 " I hope," thought he, " that I will meet many such, till I 
 overcome my difficulties, an' find myself able to assist my poor 
 father an' mother ! " 
 
 And he did meet many such among the humble, and 
 despised, and neglected of his countrymen ; for and we say it 
 with pride the character of this excellent farmer is thoroughly 
 that of our peasantry within the range of domestic life. 
 
 When he had eaten a comfortable breakfast, and seen his 
 satchel stuffed with provision for his journey, the farmer 
 brought him up to his own room, in which were also his wife 
 and children. 
 
 " God," said he, " has been good to me, blessed be his holy 
 name ! betther, it appears, in one sinse, than he has been to 
 you, dear though, maybe, I don't desarve it as well. But no 
 matther, acushla ; /have it, an' you want it : so here's a thrifle 
 to help you forrid in your larnin' ; an' all I ax from you is to 
 offer up a bit of prayer for me of an odd time, an' if ever you 
 live to be a priest, to say, if it wouldn't be throublesome, one 
 mass for me an' those that you see about me. It's not much, 
 James agra only two guineas. They may stand your friend 
 whin friends will be scarce wid you ; though I hope that won't 
 be the case aither." 
 
 The tears were already streaming down Jemmy's cheeks. 
 " Oh," said the artless boy, " God for ever reward you ! but 
 sure I have a great dale of money in the in the cuff o' my 
 coat. Indeed I have, an' I won't want it ! " 
 
 The farmer, affected by the utter simplicity of the lad, looked 
 at his wife and smiled, although a tear stood in his eye at the
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 37 
 
 time. She wiped her eyes with her apron, and backed the kind 
 offer of her husband. 
 
 " Take it, asthore," she added. " In your cuff! Musha, God 
 help you ! sure it's not much you or the likes of you can have 
 in your cuff, avourneen ! Don't be ashamed, but take it ; we 
 can well afford it, glory bs to God for it ! It's not, agra, bekase 
 you're goin' the way you are though that same's an honour to 
 you but bekase our hearts warmed to you, that we offered it, 
 an' bekase we would wish you to be thinkin' of us now an' thin, 
 when you're in a strange part of the country. Let me open your 
 pocket an' put them into it. That's a good boy; thank you, 
 an' God bless an' prosper you ! I'm sure you wor always 
 biddable." 
 
 "Now, childhre," said the farmer, addressing his sons and 
 daughters, "never see the sthranger widout a frind, nor wantin' 
 a bed or a dinner, when you grow up to be men an' women. 
 There's many a turn in this world ; we may be sthrangers our- 
 selves ; an' think of what I would feel if any of you was far 
 from me, widout money or friends, when I'd hear that you met 
 a father in a strange counthry, that lightened your hearts 
 by his kindness. Now, dear, the carts '11 be ready in no 
 time eh ? Why, there they are at the gate waitin' for you. 
 Get into one of them, an' they'll lave you in the next town. 
 Come, man, bud-an'-age, be stout-hearted, an' don't cry sure 
 we did nothin' for you to spake of. : ' 
 
 He shook the poor scholar by the hand, and, drawing his hat 
 over his eyes, passed hurriedly out of the room. Alley stooped 
 down, kissed his lips, and wept ; and the children each 
 embraced him with that mingled feeling of compassion and 
 respect which is uniformly entertained for the poor scholar in 
 Ireland. 
 
 The boy felt as if he had been again separated from his 
 parents ; with a sobbing bosom and wet cheeks he bid them 
 farewell, and, mounting one of the carts, was soon beyond 
 sight and hearing of the kind-hearted farmer and his family. 
 
 When the cart had proceeded about a mile it stopped, and 
 one of the men who accompanied it, addressing a boy who 
 passed with two sods of turf under his arm, desired him to 
 hurry on and inform his master that they waited for him. 
 
 " Tell Misther Corcoran to come into coort," said the man, 
 laughing ; " my lordship's waitin' to hear his defince for intindin' 
 not to fun away wid Miss Judy Malowny. Tell him Lord 
 Carty's ready to pass sintince on him for not stalin' the heart 
 of her wid his Rule o' Three. Ha! by the holy farmer,
 
 38 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 you'll get it for stayin' from school to this hour. Be quick, a 
 bouchal 1 " 
 
 In a few minutes the trembling urchin, glad of any message 
 that might serve to divert the dreaded birch from himself, 
 entered the uproarious " Siminary," caught his forelock, bobbed 
 down his head to the master, and pitched his two sods into a 
 little heap of turf which lay in the corner of the school. 
 
 "Arrah, Pat Roach, is this an hour to inter into my 
 establishment wid impunity ? Eh, you Rosicrucian ? " 
 
 " Masther, sir," replied the adroit monkey, " I've a message 
 for you, sir, i' you plase." 
 
 " An' what might the message be, Masther Pat Roach ? To 
 dine to-day wid your worthy father, a bouchal ?" 
 
 " No, sir ; it's from one o' Mr. Lanigan's boys him that 
 belongs to the carts, sir ; he wants to spake to you, sir, i' you 
 plase." 
 
 "An' do you give that by way of an apologetical oration for 
 your absence from the advantages of my tuition until this hour ? 
 However, non constat, Patrici; I'll pluck the crow wid you on 
 my return. If you don't find yourself a well-flogged youth for 
 your ' mitchin,' never say that this right hand can administer 
 condign punishment to that part of your physical theory which 
 constitutes the antithesis to your vacuum caput. En et ecce^ 
 you villain," he added, pointing to the birch, " it's newly cut 
 and trimmed, and pregnant wid alacrity for the operation. I 
 correct, Patricius, on fundamental principles, which you'll soon 
 feel to your cost." 
 
 " Masther, sir," replied the lad, in a friendly, conciliating 
 tone, " my fadher ud be oblaged to you if you'd take share of a 
 fat goose wid him to-morrow." 
 
 " Go to your sate, Paddy, avourneen ; divil a dacent boy in 
 the siminary I joke so much wid as I do wid yourself ; an' all 
 out of respect for your worthy parents. Faith, I've a great 
 regard for them, all out, an' tell them so." 
 
 He then proceeded to the carts, and, approaching Jemmy, 
 gave him such advice touching his conduct in Munster as he 
 considered to be most serviceable to an inexperienced lad of his 
 years. 
 
 "Here," said the kind-hearted soul "here, James, is my 
 mite. It's but bare ten shillings ; but if I could make it a 
 pound for you, it would give me a degree of delectability which 
 I have not enjoyed for a long time. The truth is, there's 
 something like the nodus matrimonii, or what they facetiously 
 term the priest's gallows, dangling over my head, so that any
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 39 
 
 little thrifle I may get must be kept together for that crisis, 
 James, a bouchal ; so that must be my apology lor not giving 
 you more, joined to the naked fact that I never was remarkable 
 for a superfluity of cash under any circumstances. Remember 
 what I told you last night. Don't let a shilling of your 
 money into the hands of the masther you settle wid. Give 
 it to the parish priest, and dhraw it from him when you want it. 
 Don't join the parties or the factions of the school. Above all, 
 spake ill of nobody ; and if the masther is harsh upon you, 
 either bear it patiently, or mintion it to the priest, or to some 
 other person of respectability in the parish, and you'll be pro- 
 tected. You'll be apt to meet cruelty enough, my good boy ; 
 for there are larned Neros in Munster who'd flog if the province 
 was in flames. 
 
 " Now, James, I'll tell you what you'll do when you reach 
 the larned south. Plant yourself on the highest hill in the 
 neighbourhood wherein the academician with whom you intend 
 to stop lives. Let the hour of reconnoitring be that in which 
 dinner is preparing. When sealed there, James, take a survey 
 of the smoke that ascends from the chimneys of the farmers' 
 houses, and be sure to direct your steps to that from which the 
 highest and merriest column issues. This is the old plan, and 
 it is a sure one. The highest smoke rises from the largest fire, 
 the laigest fire boils the biggest pot, the biggest pot generally 
 holds the fattest bacon, and the fattest bacon is kept by the 
 richest farmer. It's a wholesome and comfortable climax, my 
 boy, and one by which I myself was enabled to keep a dacent 
 portion of educated flesh between the master's birch and my 
 ribs. The science itself is called Gastric Geography, and is 
 peculiar only to itinerant young gintlemen who seek for know- 
 ledge in the classical province of Munster. 
 
 " Here's a book that thravelled along wid myself through all 
 peregrinations Creech's Translation of Horace. Keep it for 
 my sake ; and when you accomplish your education, if you 
 return home this way, I'd thank you to give me a call. Fare- 
 well ! God bless you and prosper you as I wish, and as I am 
 sure you desarve." 
 
 He shook the lad by the hand ; and as it was probable that 
 his own former struggles with poverty, when in the pursuit of 
 education, came with all the power of awakened recollection to 
 his mind, he hastily drew his hand across his eyes, and 
 returned to resume the brief but harmless authority of the ferula. 
 
 After arriving at the next town, Jemmy found himself once 
 more prosecuting his journey alone. In proportion as he
 
 40 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 advanced into a strange land his spirits became depressed, 
 and his heart cleaved more and more to those whom he had 
 left behind him. There is, however, an enthusiasm in the 
 visions of youth, in the speculations of a young heart, which 
 frequently overcomes difficulties that a mind taught by the 
 experience of life would often shrink from encountering. We 
 may all remember the utter recklessness of danger with which, 
 in our youthful days, we crossed floods, or stood upon the brow 
 of yawning precipices feats which, in after years, the wealth of 
 kingdoms could not induce us to perform. Experience, as well 
 as conscience, makes cowards of us all. 
 
 The poor scholar in the course of his journey had the satis- 
 faction of finding himself an object of kind and hospitable 
 attention to his countrymen. His satchel of books was literally 
 a passport to their hearts. For instance, as he wended his 
 solitary way, depressed and travel-worn, he was frequently 
 accosted by labourers from behind a ditch on the roadside, and, 
 after giving a brief history of the object he had in view, 
 brought, if it was dinner-hour, to some farm-house or cabin, 
 where he was made to partake of their meal. Even those poor 
 creatures who gain a scanty subsistence by keeping what are 
 called " dhry lodgin's,'' like iucus a non lucendo, because they 
 never keep out the rain, and have mostly a bottle of whisky for 
 those who know how to call for it even they, in most instances, 
 not only refused to charge the poor scholar for his bed, but 
 declined receiving any remuneration for his subsistence. 
 
 " Och, och, no! you poor young crathur; not from you. No, 
 no ; if we wouldn't help the likes o' you, who ought we to help? 
 No, dear ; but instead o' the airighadj- jist lave us your blessin', 
 an' maybe we'll thrive as well wid that as we would wid your 
 little pences, that you'll be wantin' for yourself, whin your frinds 
 won't be near to help you." 
 
 Many, in fact, were the little marks of kindness and attention 
 which the poor lad received on his way. Sometimes a ragged 
 peasant, if he happened to be his fellow-traveller, would carry 
 his satchel so long as they travelled together ; or a carman 
 would give him a lift on his empty car; or some humorous 
 postilion, or tipsy " shay-boy," with a comical leer in his eye, 
 would shove him into his vehicle, remarking 
 
 " Bedad, let nobody say you're a poor scholar now, an' you 
 goin' to school in a coach ! Be the piper that played afore 
 Moses, if ever any rascal upbraids you wid it, tell him, says 
 
 1 Money.
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 41 
 
 you ' You damned rap,' says you, 'I wint to school in a coach ! 
 an' that,' says you, ' was what none o' yer beggarly gineration 
 was ever able to do,' says you ; ' an' moreover, be the same 
 token,' says you, ' be the holy fanner, if you bring it up to me, 
 I'll make a third eye in your forehead wid the butt o* this whip,' 
 says you. Whish ! darlin's ! That's the go ! There's drivin', 
 Barny! eh?" 
 
 At length, after much toil and travel, he reached the south, 
 having experienced as he proceeded a series of affectionate 
 attentions, which had, at least, the effect of reconciling him to 
 the measure he had taken, and impressing upon his heart 
 a deeper confidence in the kindness and hospitality of his 
 countrymen. 
 
 Upon the evening of the day on which he terminated his 
 journey twilight was nearly falling. The town in which he 
 intended to stop for the night was not a quarter of a mile 
 before him, yet he was scarcely able to reach it ; his short, 
 yielding steps were evidently those of a young and fatigued 
 traveller ; his brow was moist with perspiration ; he had just 
 begun, too, to consider in what manner he should introduce 
 himself to the master who taught the school at which he had 
 been advised to stop, when he heard a step behind him, and on 
 looking back he discovered a tall, well-made, ruddy-faced 
 young man, dressed in black, with a book in his hand, walking 
 after him. 
 
 " Unde et quo, -viator?" said the stranger, on coming up with 
 him. 
 
 " Oh, sir," replied Jemmy, " I have not Latin yet. n 
 
 " You are on your way to seek it, however," replied the other. 
 " Have you travelled far ? " 
 
 " A long way, indeed, sir ; I came from the county , sir 
 
 the upper part of it." 
 
 " Have you letters from your parish priest?" 
 
 " I have, sir, and one from my father's landlord, Square 
 Benson, if you ever heard of him." 
 
 " What's your object in learning Latin ? " 
 
 " To be a priest, sir, wid the help o' God, an' to rise my poor 
 father an' mother out of their poverty." 
 
 His companion, after hearing this reply, bent a glance upon 
 him that indicated the awakening of an interest in the lad much 
 greater than he probably otherwise would have felt. 
 
 " It's only of late," continued the boy, " that my father and 
 mother got poor ; they were once very well to do in the world. 
 But they were put out o' their farm in ordher that the agint might
 
 42 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 put a man that had married a geP- of his own into it. My father 
 
 intended to lay his case before Colonel B , the landlord ; but 
 
 he couldn't see him at all, bekase he never comes near the estate. 
 The agint's called Yallow Sam, sir ; he's rich through cheatery 
 and dishonesty ; puts money out at intherest, then goes to law, 
 and brakes the people entirely; for, somehow, he never was 
 known to lose a lawsuit at all, sir. They say it's the divil, sir, 
 that keeps the lawyers on his side ; and that when he an' the 
 lawyers do be dhrawin' up their writin's, the divil God betune 
 me an' harm ! does be helpin' them." 
 
 " And is Colonel B actually or, rather, was he your 
 
 father's landlord?" 
 
 " He was, indeed, sir ; it's thruth I'm tellin' you." 
 
 " Singular enough ! Stand beside me here do you see that 
 large house to the right among the trees ? " 
 
 " I do, sir ; a great big house entirely ; like a castle, sir." 
 
 " The same. Well, that house belongs to Colonel B , and 
 
 I am very intimate with him. I am Catholic curate of this 
 parish ; and I was, before my ordination, private tutor in his 
 family for four years." 
 
 " Maybe, sir, you might have intherest to get my father back 
 into his farm ? " 
 
 " I do not know that, my good lad, for I am told Colonel 
 
 B is rather embarrassed, and, if I mistake not, in the power 
 
 of the man you call Yellow Sam, who has, I believe, heavy 
 mortgages upon his property. But no matter ; if I cannot help 
 your father, 1 shall be able to serve yourself. Where do you 
 intend to stop for the night ?" 
 
 " In dhry lodgin', sir; that's where my father and mother bid 
 me stop always. They war very kind to me, sir, in the dhry 
 lodgin's." 
 
 " Who is there in Ireland who would not be kind to you, my 
 good boy? I trust you do not neglect your religious duties ?" 
 
 " Wid the help o' God, sir, I strive to attind to them as well 
 as I can ; particularly since I left my father and mother. Every 
 night an' mornin', sir, I say five pathers, five aves, an' a creed ; 
 an' sometimes when I'm walkin' the road I slip up an odd 
 pather, sir, an' ave, that God may grant me good luck." 
 
 The priest smiled at his candour and artlessness, and could 
 not help feeling the interest which the boy had already excited 
 in him increase. 
 
 " You do right," said he, " and take care that you neglect not 
 
 1 A term implying illegitimacy.
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 43 
 
 the worship of God. Avoid bad company ; be not quarrelsome 
 at school ; study to improve yourself diligently ; attend mass 
 regularly, and be punctual in going to confession." 
 
 After some further conversation, the priest and he entered the 
 town together. 
 
 " This is my house," said the former ; " or, if not altogether 
 mine, at least that in which I lodge ; let me see you here at two 
 o'clock to-morrow. In the meantime follow me, and I shall 
 place you with a family where you will experience every kind- 
 ness and attention that can make you comfortable." 
 
 He then led him a few doors up the street, till he stopped at 
 a decent-looking " house of entertainment," to the proprietors of 
 which he introduced him. 
 
 " Be kind to this strange boy," said the worthy clergyman, 
 "and whatever the charges of his board and lodging may be 
 until we get him settled, I shall be accountable for them." 
 
 " God forbid, your reverence, that ever a penny belongin' to 
 a poor boy looking for his larnin' should go into our pockets, if 
 he was wid us twelve months in the year. No no ! he can 
 stay with the bouchaleens ; l let them be thryin' one another in 
 their books. If he is fardher on in the Latin than Andy, he can 
 help Andy ; an' if Andy has the foreway of him, why Andy can 
 help him. Come here, boys, all of yees. Here's a comarade for 
 yees a dacent boy that's lookin' for his larnin' ; the Lord 
 enable him ! Now be kind to him, an' whisper," he added in an 
 undertone, " don't be bringin' a blush to the gorsoon's face. Do 
 yees hear ? Ma chorp 1 if yees do 1 Now mind it. Yees 
 know what I can do whin I'm vexed! Go, now, an' git him 
 somethin' to ate an' dhrink, an' let him sleep wid Barney in the 
 feather-bed." 
 
 During the course of the next day the benevolent curate 
 introduced him to the parish priest, who, from the frequent 
 claims urged by poor scholars upon his patronage, felt no 
 particular interest in his case. He wrote a short letter, however, 
 to the master with whom Jemmy intended to become a pupil, 
 stating that "he was an honest boy, the son of legitimate parents^ 
 and worthy of consideration." 
 
 The curate, who saw further into the boy's character than the 
 parish priest, accompanied him on the following day to the 
 school ; introduced him to the master in the most favourable 
 manner, and recommended him in general to the hospitable care 
 of all the pupils. This introduction did not serve the boy so 
 
 1 Little boys.
 
 44 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 much as might have been expected ; there was nothing par- 
 ticular in the letter of the parish priest, and the curate was 
 but a curate no formidable personage in any church, where 
 the good-will of the rector has not been already secured. 
 
 Jemmy returned that day to his lodgings, and the next morning, 
 with his Latin grammar under his arm, he went to the school to 
 taste the first bitter fruits of the tree of knowledge. 
 
 On entering it, which he did with a beating heart, he found 
 the despot of a hundred subjects sitting behind a desk, with his 
 hat on, a brow superciliously severe, and his nose crimped into 
 a most cutting and vinegar curl. The truth was, the master 
 knew the character of the curate, and felt that, because he had 
 taken Jemmy under his protection, no opportunity remained for 
 him of fleecing the boy, under the pretence of securing his 
 money, and that consequently the arrival of the poor scholar 
 would be no windfall, as he had expected. 
 
 When Jemmy entered, he looked first at the master for his 
 welcome ; but the master, who verified the proverb that there 
 are none so blind as those who will not see, took no notice 
 whatsoever of him. The boy then looked timidly about the 
 school in quest of a friendly face, and, indeed, few faces except 
 friendly ones were turned upon him. 
 
 Several of the scholars rose up simultaneously to speak to 
 him ; but the pedagogue angrily inquired why they had left 
 their seats and their business. 
 
 "Why, sir," said a young Munsterman, with a fine Milesian 
 face " be Gorra, sir, I believe if we don't welcome the poor 
 scholar, I think you won't. This is the boy, sir, that Mr. 
 O'Brien came along wid yistherday, an' spoke so well of." 
 
 " I know that, Thady ; and Misther O'Brien thinks, because 
 he himself first passed through that overgrown hedge-school, 
 wid slates upon the roof of it, called Thrinity College, and 
 matriculated in Maynooth afther, that he has legal authority to 
 recommend every young vagrant to the gratuitous benefits of 
 legitimate classicality. An', I suppose, that you are acting the 
 pathrun, too, Thady, and intend to take this young wild-goose 
 under your protection?" 
 
 "Why, sir, isn't he a poor scholar? Sure he mustn't want 
 his bit an' sup, nor his night's lod gin', anyhow. You'reto give 
 him his larnin' only, sir." 
 
 " I suppose so, Mr. Thaddeus ; but this is the penalty of 
 celebrity. If I weren't so celebrated a man for classics as I am 
 I would have none of this work. I tell you, Thady, if I had 
 fifty sons I wouldn't make one o' them celebrated"
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 45 
 
 " Wait till you have one first, sir, and you may make him as 
 great a numskull as you plase, masther." 
 
 " But in the meantime, Thady, I'll have no dictation from 
 you as to whether I'll have one or fifty ; or as to whether he'll 
 be an ass or a Newton. I say that a dearth of larnin' is like a 
 year of famine in Ireland. When the people are hard pushed, 
 they bleed the fattest bullocks, an' live on their blood ; an' so it 
 is wid us academicians. It's always he that has the most 
 larned blood in his veins, and the greatest quantity of it, that 
 such hungry leeches fasten on." 
 
 " Thrue for you, sir,'' said the youth, with a smile ; " but they 
 say the bullocks always fatten the betther for it. I hope you'll 
 bleed well now, sir." 
 
 " Thady, I don't like the curl of your nose ; an', moreover, 
 I have always found you prone to sedition. You remember 
 your conduct at the ' barring out.' I tell you it's well that 
 your worthy father is a dacent, wealthy man, or I'd be apt 
 to give you a memoria technica on the subtratum, Thady." 
 
 "God be praised for my father's wealth, sir ! But I'd never 
 wish to have a good memory in the way you mention." 
 
 " Faith, an' I'll be apt to add that to your other qualities, if 
 you don't take care of yourself." 
 
 " I want no such addition, masther 1 if you do, you'll be apt 
 to subtract yourself from this neighbourhood, an', maybe, there 
 won't be more than a cypher gone out of it, afther all." 
 
 " Thady, you're a wag," exclaimed the crestfallen pedagogue ; 
 " take the lad to your own sate, and show him his task. How 
 is your sister's sore throat, Thady?" 
 
 " Why, sir," replied the benevolent young wit, " she's betther 
 than I am. She can swallow more, sir." 
 
 " Not of larnin', Thady ; there you've the widest gullet in the 
 parish." 
 
 " My father's the richest man in it, masther," replied Thady. 
 " I think, sir, my gullet and his purse are much about the same 
 size wid you? 
 
 " Thady, you're first-rate at a reply, but exceedingly deficient 
 in the retort courteous. Take the lad to your sate, I say, and 
 see how far he is advanced, and what he is fit for. I suppose, 
 as you are so ginerous, you will volunteer to tache him 
 yourself." 
 
 " I'll do that wid pleasure, sir ; but I'd like to know whether 
 you intind to tache him or not." 
 
 " An' I'd like to know, Thady, who's to pay me for it if I do. 
 A purty return Michael Rooney made me for making him such 
 
 5
 
 46 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 a linguist as he is. ' You're a tyrant,' said he, when he grew up, 
 'and instead of expecting me to thank you for your instructions, 
 you ought to thank me for not preparing you for the county 
 hospital, as a memento of the cruelty and brutality you made 
 me feel when I had the misfortune to be a poor scholar under you.' 
 And so, because he became curate of the parish, he showed me 
 the outside of it. 1 ' 
 
 " But will you tache this poor young boy, sir?" 
 "Let me know who's to guarantee his payments ?" 
 " I have money myself, sir, to pay you for two years," replied 
 Jemmy. "They told me, sir, that you were a great scholar, 
 and I refused to stop in other schools by rason of the name you 
 have for Latin an' Greek." 
 
 " Verbum sat." exclaimed the barefaced knave. " Come 
 here. Now, you see, I persave you have dacency. Here is 
 your task : get that half-page by heart. You have a cute look, 
 an' I've no doubt but the stuff's in you. Come to me afther 
 dismiss, till we have a little talk together." 
 
 He accordingly pointed out his task, after which he placed 
 him at his side, lest the inexperienced boy might be put on his 
 guard by any of the scholars. In this intention, however, he 
 was frustrated by Thady, who, as he thoroughly detested the 
 knavish tyrant, resolved to caution the poor scholar against his 
 dishonesty. Thady, indeed, most heartily despised the mer- 
 cenary pedagogue, not only for his obsequiousness to the rich, 
 but on account of his severity to the children of the poor. 
 About two o'clock the young wag went out for a few minutes, 
 and immediately returned in great haste to inform the master 
 that Mr. Delany, the parish priest, and two other gentlemen, 
 wished to see him over at the Cross Keys, an inn which was 
 kept at a place called the Nine-Mile House, within a few 
 perches of the school. The parish priest, though an ignorant, 
 insipid old dunce, was the master's patron, and his slightest 
 wish a divine law to him. The little despot, forgetting his prey, 
 instantly repaired to the Cross Keys, and in his absence, 
 Thady, together with the larger boys of the school, made 
 M'Evoy acquainted with the fraud about to be practised on him. 
 "His intintion," said they, "is to keep you at home to-night, 
 in ordher to get whatever money you have into his own hands, 
 that he may keep it safe for you ; but if you give him a penny 
 you may bid farewell to it. Put it in the curate's hands," 
 added Thady, " or in my father's, an' thin it'll be safe. At all 
 evints, don't stay wid him this night. He'll take your money, 
 and then turn you off in three or four weeks."
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 47 
 
 " I didn't intind to give him my money," replied Jemmy ; " a 
 schoolmaster I met on my way here bid me not to do it. I'll 
 give it to the priest.'' 
 
 " Give it to the curate," said Thady " wid him it'll be safe ; 
 for the parish priest doesn't like to throuble himself wid 
 anything of the kind." 
 
 This was agreed upon ; the boy was prepared against the 
 designs of the master, and a plan laid down for his future 
 conduct. In the meantime the latter re-entered the school 
 in a glow of indignation and disappointment. 
 
 Thady, however, disregarded him ; and as the master knew 
 that the influence of the boy's father could at any time remove 
 him from the parish, his anger subsided without any very 
 violent consequences. The parish priest was his avowed 
 patron, it is true ; but if the parish priest knew that Mr. 
 O'Rorke was dissatisfied with him, that moment he would 
 join Mr. O'Rorke in expelling him from the neighbourhood. 
 Mr. O'Rorke was a wealthy and hospitable man, but the 
 schoolmaster was neither the one nor the other. 
 
 During school-hours that day many a warm-hearted urchin 
 entered into conversation with the poor scholar : some moved 
 by curiosity to hear his brief and simple history ; others 
 anxious to offer him a temporary asylum in their fathers' houses; 
 and several to know if he had the requisite books, assuring 
 him that if he had not, they would lend them to him. These 
 proofs of artless generosity touched the homeless youth's heart 
 the more acutely, inasmuch as he could perceive but too clearly 
 that the eye of the master rested upon him, from time to time, 
 with no auspicious glance. 
 
 When the scholars were dismissed, a scene occurred which 
 was calculated to produce a smile, although it certainly placed 
 the poor scholar in a predicament by no means agreeable. It 
 resulted from a contest among the boys as to who should 
 first bring him home. The master, who, by that cunning for 
 which the knavish are remarkable, had discovered in the course 
 of the day that his design upon the boy's money was under- 
 stood, did not ask him to his house. The contest was, 
 therefore, among the scholars, who, when the master had 
 disappeared from the schoolroom, formed themselves into a 
 circle, of which Jemmy was the centre, each pressing his claim 
 to secure him. 
 
 "The right's wid me," exclaimed Thady. "I stood to him 
 all day, an' I say I'll have him for this night. Come wid me, 
 Jimmy. Didn't I do most for you to-day?"
 
 48 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 " I'll never forget your kindness," replied poor Jemmy, quite 
 alarmed at the boisterous symptoms of pugilism which already 
 began to appear. In fact, many a tiny fist was shut, as a 
 suitable accompaniment to the arguments with which they 
 enforced their assumed rights. 
 
 " There now," continued Thady, " that puts an ind to it ; he 
 says he'll never forget my kindness. That's enough ; come wid 
 me, Jimmy." 
 
 "Is it enough?" said a lad who, if his father was less 
 wealthy than Thady's, was resolved to put strength of arm 
 against strength of purse. " Maybe it isn't enough 1 / say 
 I bar it, if your fadher was fifty times as rich 1 Rich 1 Arrah, 
 don't be comin' over us in regard of your riches, man alive ! 
 I'll bring the sthrange boy home this very night, an' it isn't 
 your fadher"s dirty money that'll prevint me 1 " 
 
 " I'd advise you to get a double ditch about your nose," 
 replied Thady, " before you begin to say anything disrespectful 
 aginst my father. Don't think to ballyrag over me. Pll bring 
 the boy, for I have the best right to him. Didn't I do 1 the 
 masther on his account ?" 
 
 1 A double ditch about my nose ? " 
 
 ( Ay!" 
 
 'Are you able to fight me ?" 
 
 ' I'm able to thry it, anyhow, an'willin' too." 
 
 ' Do you say you're able to fight me ? " 
 
 ' I'll bring the boy home, whether or not." 
 ' Thady's not your match, Jack Ratigan," said another boy. 
 " Why don't you challenge your match ? " 
 
 "If you say a word, I'll half-sole your eye. Let him say 
 whether he's able to fight me like a man or not. That's the 
 chat." 
 
 " Half-sole my eye ! Thin here I am, an' why don't you do 
 it ? You're crowin' over a boy that you're bigger than. Pll 
 fight you for Thady. Now half-sole my eye, if you dar ! Eh ? 
 
 Here's my eye now ! Arrah, be the holy man, I'd Don't 
 
 we know the white hen's in you? Didn't Barny Murtagh cow 
 you at the black pool on Thursday last, whin we wor bathin'?" 
 
 "Come, Ratigan," said Thady, "peel an' turn out. I say 
 I am able to fight you ; an' I'll make you ate your words aginst 
 my father, by way of givin' you your dinner. An' I'll make 
 the dacent strange boy walk home wid me over your body 
 that is, if he'd not be afraid to dirty his feet." 
 
 1 Outwit.
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 49 
 
 Ratigan and Thady immediately set to, and in a few minutes 
 there were scarcely a little pair of fists present that were not at 
 work, either on behalf of the two combatants, or with a view to 
 determine their own private rights in being the first to exercise 
 hospitality towards the amazed poor scholar. The fact was, 
 that while the two largest boys were arguing the point, about 
 thirty or forty minor disputes all ran parallel to theirs, and 
 their mode of decision was immediately adopted by the pug- 
 nacious urchins of the school. In this manner they were 
 engaged, poor Jemmy attempting to tranquillise and separate 
 them, when the master, armed in all his terrors, presented 
 himself. 
 
 With the tact of a sly old disciplinarian, he first secured the 
 door, and instantly commenced the agreeable task of promis- 
 cuous castigation. Heavy and vindictive did his arm descend 
 upon those whom he suspected to have cautioned the boy 
 against his rapacity ; nor amongst the warm-hearted lads whom 
 he thwacked so cunningly was Thady passed over with a tender 
 hand. Springs, bouncings, doublings, blowing of fingers, 
 scratching of heads, and rubbing of elbows shouts of pain, 
 and doleful exclamations, accompanied by action that displayed 
 surpassing agility marked the effect with which he plied the 
 instrument of punishment. In the meantime the spirit of re- 
 action, to use a modern phrase, began to set in. The master, 
 while thus engaged in dispensing justice, first received a rather 
 vigorous thwack on the ear from behind by an anonymous 
 contributor, who gifted him with what is called a musical ear, 
 for it sang during five minutes afterwards. The monarch, 
 when turning round to ascertain the traitor, received another 
 insult on the most indefensible side, and that with a cordiality 
 of manner that induced him to send his right hand recon- 
 noitring the invaded part. He wheeled round a second time 
 with more alacrity than before ; but nothing less than the head 
 of Janus could have secured him on the occasion. The anony- 
 mous contributor sent him a fresh article. This was supported 
 by another kick behind ; the turf began to fly ; one after another 
 came in contact with his head and shoulders so rapidly that he 
 found himself, instead of being the assailant, actually placed 
 upon his defence. The insurrection spread, the turf flew more 
 thickly ; his subjects closed in upon him in a more compact 
 body ; every little fist itched to be at him ; the larger boys 
 boldly laid in the facers, punched him in the stomach, treated 
 him most opprobriously behind, every kick and cuff accom- 
 panied by a memento of his cruelty ; in short, they compelled
 
 50 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 him, like Charles the Tenth, ignominiously to fly from his 
 dominions. 
 
 On finding the throne vacant, some of them suggested that it 
 ought to be overturned altogether. Thady, however, who was 
 the ringleader of the rebellion, persuaded them to be satisfied 
 with what they had accomplished, and consequently succeeded 
 in preventing them from destroying the fixtures. 
 
 Again they surrounded the poor scholar, who, feeling himself 
 the cause of the insurrection, appeared an object of much pity. 
 Such was his grief that he could scarcely reply to them. Their 
 consolation on witnessing his distress was overwhelming ; they 
 desired him to think nothing of it ; if the master, they told 
 him, should wreak his resentment on him, " be the holy farmer, 
 they would pay 1 the masther." Thady's claim was now un- 
 disputed ; with only the injury of a black eye, and a lip swelled 
 to the size of a sausage, he walked home in triumph, the poor 
 scholar accompanying him. 
 
 The master, who feared that this open contempt of his 
 authority, running up, as it did, into a very unpleasant species 
 of retaliation, was something like a signal for him to leave the 
 parish, felt rather more of the penitent the next morning than 
 did any of his pupils. He was by no means displeased, 
 therefore, to see them drop in about the usual hour. They 
 came, however, not one by one, but in compact groups, each 
 officered by two or three of the larger boys ; for they feared 
 that had they entered singly he might have punished them 
 singly, until his vengeance should be satisfied. It was by 
 bitter and obstinate struggles that they succeeded in repressing 
 their mirth when he appeared at his desk with one of his eyes 
 literally closed, and his nose considerably improved in size and 
 richness of colour. When they were all assembled, he hemmed 
 several times, and in a woe-begone tone of voice, split by a 
 feeble attempt at maintaining authority and suppressing his 
 terrors into two parts that jarred most ludicrously, he briefly 
 addressed them as follows : 
 
 " Gintlemen classics, 1 have been now twenty-six years 
 engaged in the propagation of Latin and Greek litherature, 
 in conjunction wid Mathematics, but never until yesterday 
 has my influence been spumed ; never until yesterday have 
 sacrilegious hands been laid upon my person ; never until 
 yesterday have I been kicked insidiously, ungallantly, and 
 treacherously kicked by my own subjects. No, gintlemen 
 
 1 Punish.
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. $t 
 
 and whether I ought to bestow that respectable epithet upon 
 you after yesterday's proceedings is a matter which admits of 
 dispute never before has the lid of my eye been laid droop- 
 ing, and that in such a manner that I must be blind to the 
 conduct of half my pupils, whether I will or not. You have 
 complained, it appears, of my want of impartiality ; but God 
 knows you have compelled me to be partial for a- week to come. 
 Neither blame me if I may appear to look upon you with scorn 
 for the next fortnight, for I am compelled to turn up my nose 
 at you much against my own inclination. You need never 
 want an illustration of the naso adunco of Horace again I'm a 
 living example of it. That, and the doctrine of projectile forces, 
 have been exemplified in a manner that will prevent me from 
 ever relishing these subjects in future. No king can consider 
 himself properly such until after he has received the oil of con- 
 secration ; but you, it appears, think differently. You have 
 unkinged me first, and anointed me afterwards ; but, I say, no 
 potentate would relish such unction. It smells confoundedly of 
 republicanism. Maybe this is what you understand by the 
 Republic of Letters ; but if it be, I would advise you to change 
 your principles. You treated my ribs as if they were the ribs 
 of a common man ; my shins you took liberties wid even to 
 excoriation ; my head you made a target of for your hardest 
 turf; and my nose you dishonoured to my face. Was this 
 ginerous ? was it discreet ? was it subordinate ? and, above all, 
 was it classical? However, I will show you what greatness of 
 mind is ; I will convince you that it is more noble and god-like 
 to forgive an injury, or rather five dozen injuries, than to 
 avenge one, when hem! yes, I say, when I I might so 
 easily avenge it. I now present you wid an amnesty. Return 
 to your allegiance, but never, while in this siminary, under my 
 tuition, attimpt to take the execution of the laws into your own 
 hands. Homerians, come up ! " 
 
 This address, into which he purposely threw a dash of banter 
 and mock gravity, delivered with the accompaniments of his 
 swelled nose and drooping eye, pacified his audience more 
 readily than a serious one would have done. It was received 
 without any reply or symptom of disrespect, unless the 
 occasional squeak of a suppressed laugh, or the visible shaking 
 of many sides with inward convulsions, might be termed such. 
 
 In the course of the day, it is true, their powers of main- 
 taining gravity were put to a severe test, particularly when, 
 while hearing a class, he began to adjust his drooping eyelid, 
 or coax back his nose into its natural position. On these
 
 52 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 occasions a sudden pause might be noticed in the business of 
 the class ; the boy's voice who happened to read at the time 
 would fail him ; and on resuming his sentence by command of 
 the master, its tone was tremulous, and scarcely adequate to the 
 task of repeating the words without his bursting into laughter. 
 The master observed all this clearly enough, but his mind 
 was already made up to take no further notice of what had 
 happened. 
 
 All this, however, conduced to render the situation of the poor 
 scholar much more easy, or rather less penal, than it would 
 otherwise have been. Still the innocent lad was on all possible 
 occasions a butt for this miscreant. To miss a word was a 
 pretext for giving him a cruel blow. To arrive two or three 
 minutes later than the appointed hour was certain on his part to 
 be attended with immediate punishment. Jemmy bore it all 
 with silent heroism. He shed no tear he uttered no remon- 
 strance ; but under the anguish of pain so barbarously inflicted, 
 he occasionally looked round upon his schoolfellows with an 
 expression of silent entreaty that was seldom lost upon them. 
 Cruel to him the master often was, but to inhuman barbarity 
 the large scholars never permitted him to descend. Whenever 
 any of the wealthier farmers' sons had neglected their lessons, 
 or deserved chastisement, the mercenary creature substituted a 
 joke for the birch ; but as soon as the son of a poor man, or, 
 which was better still, the poor scholar, came before him, he 
 transferred to his or their shoulders that punishment which the 
 wickedness or idleness of respectable boys deserved. For this 
 outrageous injustice the hard-hearted old villain had some 
 plausible excuse ready, so that it was in many cases difficult for 
 Jemmy's generous companions to interfere in his behalf, or parry 
 the sophistry of such a petty tyrant. 
 
 In this miserable way did he pass over the tedious period of a 
 year, going about every night in rotation with the scholars, and 
 severely beaten on all possible occasions by the master. His 
 conduct and manners won him the love and esteem of all except 
 his tyrant instructor. His assiduity was remarkable, and his 
 progress in the elements of English and classical literature 
 surprisingly rapid. This added considerably to his character, 
 and procured him additional respect. It was not long until he 
 made himself useful and obliging to all the boys beneath his 
 standing in the school. These services he rendered with an air 
 of such kindness, and a grace so naturally winning, that the 
 attachment of his schoolfellows increased towards him from day 
 to day. Thady was his patron on all occasions ; neither did
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 53 
 
 the curate neglect him. The latter was his banker, for the 
 boy had very properly committed his purse to his keeping. At 
 the expiration of every quarter the schoolmaster received the 
 amount of his bill, which he never failed to send in when 
 due. 
 
 Jemmy had not, during his first year's residence in the south, 
 forgotten to request the kind curate's interference with the 
 landlord on behalf of his father. To be the instrument of 
 restoring his family to their former comfortable holding under 
 
 Colonel B would have afforded him, without excepting the 
 
 certainty of his own eventual success, the highest gratification. 
 Of this, however, there was no hope, and nothing remained for 
 him but assiduity in his studies, and patience under the merciless 
 scourge of his teacher. In addition to an engaging person and 
 agreeable manners, nature had gifted him with a high order of 
 intellect and great powers of acquiring knowledge. The latter 
 he applied to the business before him with indefatigable industry. 
 The school at which he settled was considered the first in 
 Munster ; and the master, notwithstanding his known severity, 
 stood high, and justly so, in the opinion of the people, as an 
 excellent classical and mathematical scholar. Jemmy applied 
 himself to the study of both, and at the expiration of his second 
 year had made such progress that he stood without a rival in 
 the school. 
 
 It is usual, as we have said, for the poor scholar to go night 
 after night in rotation with his schoolfellows ; he is particularly 
 welcome in the houses of those farmers whose children are not 
 so far advanced as himself. It is expected that he should 
 instruct them in the evenings, and enable them to prepare their 
 lessons for the following day a task which he always performs 
 with pleasure, because in teaching them he is confirming his 
 own mind in the knowledge which he has previously acquired. 
 Towards the end of the second year, however, he ceased to 
 circulate in this manner. Two or three of the most independent 
 parishioners, whose sons were only commencing their studies, 
 agreed to keep him week about an arrangement highly con- 
 venient to him, as by that means he was not so frequently 
 dragged, as he had been, to the remotest parts of the parish. 
 Being an expert penman, he acted also as secretary of griev- 
 ances to the poor, who frequently employed him to draw 
 up petitions to obdurate landlords, or to their more obdurate 
 agents, and letters to soldiers in all parts of the world 
 from their anxious and affectionate relations. All these little 
 services he performed kindly and promptly ; many a blessing
 
 54 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 was fervently invoked upon his head; the "good word" and 
 "the prayer" were all they could afford, as they said, "to the 
 bouchal dhas oge^ that tuck the world an him for sake o' the 
 larnin', and tl at hasn't the kindliness o' the mother's breath 
 an' the mother's hand near him, the crathur." 
 
 About the middle of the third year he was once more thrown 
 upon the general hospitality of the people. The three farmers 
 with whom he had lived for the preceding six months emigrated 
 to America, as did many others of that class which, in this 
 country, most nearly approximates to the substantial yeomanry 
 of England. The little purse, too, which he had placed in the 
 hands of the kind priest was exhausted ; a season of famine, 
 sickness, and general distress had set in ; and the master, on 
 understanding that he was without money, became diabolically 
 savage. In short, the boy's difficulties increased to a perplexing 
 degree. Even Thady and his grown companions, who usually 
 interposed in his behalf when the master became excessive in 
 correcting him, had left the school, and now the prospect before 
 him was dark and cheerless indeed. For a few months longer, 
 however, he struggled on, meeting every difficulty with meek 
 endurance. Since his very boyhood he had reverenced the 
 sanctions of religion, and was actuated by a strong devotional 
 spirit. He trusted in God, and worshipped him night and 
 morning with a sincere heart. 
 
 At this crisis he was certainly an object of pity; his clothes, 
 which for some time before were reduced to tatters, he had 
 replaced by a cast-off coat and small-clothes, a present from 
 his friend the curate, who never abandoned him. This worthy 
 young man could not afford him money, for as he had but fifty 
 pounds a year with which to clothe, subsist himself, keep a 
 horse, and pay rent, it was hardly to be expected that his 
 benevolence could be extensive. In addition to this, famine 
 and contagious disease raged with formidable violence in the 
 parish ; so that the claims upon his bounty of hundreds who lay 
 huddled together in cold cabins, in out-houses, and even behind 
 ditches, were incessant as well as heartrending. The numbei 
 of interments that took place daily in the parish was awful ; 
 nothing could be seen but funerals attended by groups of 
 ragged and emaciated creatures, from whose hollow eyes 
 gleamed forth the wolfish fire of famine. The wretched 
 mendicants were countless, and the number of coffins that lay 
 on the public roads where, attended by the nearest relatives of 
 
 1 The pretty young boy. Boy, in Ireland, does not always imply 
 youth.
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 55 
 
 the deceased, they had been placed for the purpose of procuring 
 charity were greater than ever had been remembered by the 
 oldest inhabitant. 
 
 Such was the state of the parish when our poor scholar 
 complained one day in school of severe illness. The early 
 symptoms of the prevailing epidemic were well known, and, on 
 examining more closely into his situation, it was clear that, 
 according to the phraseology of the people, he had " got the 
 faver on his back" had caught " a heavy load of the faver." 
 The Irish are particularly apprehensive of contagious maladies. 
 The moment it had been discovered that Jemmy was infected, 
 his schoolfellows avoided him with a feeling of terror scarcely 
 credible, and the inhuman master was delighted at any 
 circumstance, however calamitous, that might afford him a 
 pretext for driving the friendless youth out of the school. 
 
 " Take," said he, " everything belongin' to you out of my 
 establishment ; you were always a plague to me, but now more 
 than ever. Be quick, sarra, and nidificate for yourself some- 
 where else. Do you want to thranslate my siminary into an 
 hospital, and myself into Lazarus as president ? Go off, you 
 wild goose, and conjugate cegroto wherever you find a con- 
 venient spot to do it in." 
 
 The poor boy silently and with difficulty arose, collected his 
 books, and, slinging on his satchel, looked to his schoolfellows, 
 as if he had said, " Which of you will afford me a place where 
 to lay my aching head ? " All, however, kept aloof from him ; 
 he had caught the contagion, and the contagion, they knew, 
 had swept the people away in vast numbers. 
 
 At length he spoke. " Is there any boy among you," he 
 inquired, " who will bring me home ? You know I am a 
 stranger, an' far from my own ; God help me ! " 
 
 This was followed by a profound silence. Not one of those 
 who had so often befriended him, or who would on any other 
 occasion share their bed and their last morsel with him, would 
 even touch his person, much less allow him, when thus plague- 
 stricken, to take shelter under their roof. Such are the effects 
 of selfishness when it is opposed only by the force of those 
 natural qualities that are not elevated into a sense of duty by 
 clear and profound views of Christian truth. It is one thing to 
 perform a kind action from constitutional impulse, and another 
 to perform it as a fixed duty, perhaps contrary to that impulse. 
 
 Jemmy, on finding himself avoided like a Hebrew leper of 
 old, silently left the school, and walked on without knowing 
 whither he should ultimately direct his steps. He thought of his
 
 56 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 friend the priest, but the distance between him and his place of 
 abode was greater, he felt, than his illness would permit him to 
 travel. He walked on, therefore, in such a state of misery and 
 dereliction as can scarcely be conceived, much less described. 
 His head ached excessively, an intense pain shot like death- 
 pangs through his lower back and loins, his face was flushed 
 and his head giddy. In this state he proceeded, without money 
 or friends, without a house to shelter him, a bed on which to 
 lie, far from his own relations, and with the prospect of death, 
 under circumstances peculiarly dreadful, before him 1 He 
 tottered on, however, the earth, as he imagined, reeling under 
 him ; the heavens, he thought, streaming with fire, and the 
 earth indistinct and discoloured. Home, the paradise of the 
 absent home, the heaven of the affections with all its tender- 
 ness and blessed sympathies, rushed upon his heart. His 
 father's deep but quiet kindness, his mother's sedulous love ; 
 his brothers all that they had been to him these, with their 
 thousand heart-stirring associations, started into life before him 
 again and again. But he was now ill, and the mother ah ! 
 the enduring sense of that mother's love placed her brightest 
 and strongest and tenderest in the far and distant group which 
 his imagination bodied forth. 
 
 "Mother!" he exclaimed, "oh, mother, why why did I 
 ever lave you? Mother! the son you loved is dyin' without a 
 kind word lonely and neglected in a strange land ! Oh, my 
 own mother 1 why did I ever lave you ?" 
 
 The conflict between his illness and his affections overcame 
 him ; he staggered he grasped as if for assistance at the 
 vacant air he fell, and lay for some time in a state of insensi- 
 bility. 
 
 The season was then that of midsummer, and early meadows 
 were falling before the scythe. As the boy sank to the earth a 
 few labourers were eating their scanty dinner of bread and milk 
 so near him that only a dry low ditch ran between him and 
 them. They had heard his words indistinctly, and one of them 
 was putting the milk bottle to his lips, when, attracted by the 
 voice, he looked in the direction of the speaker, and saw him 
 fall. They immediately recognised " the poor scholar," and in 
 a moment were attempting to recover him. 
 
 "Why thin, my poor fellow, what's a shaughran wid 
 you ? " 
 
 Jemmy started for a moment, looked about him, and asked, 
 " Where am I ? " 
 
 " Faitha, thin, you're in Rory Connor's field, widin a few
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 57 
 
 perches of the high road. But what ails you, poor boy? is it 
 sick you are?" 
 
 " It is," he replied ; " I have got the faver. I had to lave 
 school ; none o' them would take me home, an' I doubt I must 
 die in a Christian counthry undher the bpen canopy of heaven. 
 Oh, for God's sake, don't lave me ! Bring me to some hospital, 
 or into the next town, where people may know that I'm sick, an' 
 maybe some kind Christian will relieve me 1 " 
 
 The moment he mentioned "Fever" the men involuntarily 
 drew back, after having laid him reclining against the green 
 ditch. 
 
 " Thin, thundher an' turf, what's to be done ? " exclaimed one 
 of them, thrusting his spread fingers into his hair. "Is the 
 poor boy to die widout help among Christyeens like uz ?" 
 
 " But hasn't he the sickness ? " exclaimed another, " an' in 
 that case, Pether, what's to be done ? " 
 
 " Why, you gommoch, isn't that what I'm wantin' to know ? 
 You wor ever an' always a dam' ass, Paddy, except before you 
 wor born, an' thin you wor like Major M'Curragh, worse nor 
 nothin'. Why the sarra do you be spakin' about the sickness, 
 the Lord protect us, whin you know I'm so timersome of it ?" 
 
 " But considher," said another, edging off from Jemmy, how- 
 ever, " that he's a poor scholar, an' that there's a great blessin' 
 to thim that assists the likes of him." 
 
 " Ay, is there that, sure enough, Dan ; but you see blur-an- 
 age, what's to be done ? He can't die this-a-way, wid nobody 
 wid him but himself." 
 
 " Let us help him !" exclaimed another, "for God's sake, an' 
 we won't be apt to take it thin." 
 
 " Ay, but how can we help him, Frank ? Oh, bedad, it ud be 
 a murdherin' shame, all out, to let the crathur die by himself, 
 widout company, so it would." 
 
 " No one will take him in for fraid o' the sickness. Why, 
 I'll tell you what we'll do. Let us skhame the remainder o' this 
 day off o' the Major, an' build a shed for him on the road-side 
 here, jist aginst the ditch. It's as dhry as powdher. Thin we 
 can go through the neighbours, an' get thim to sit near him 
 time about, an' to bring him little dhreeniens o' nourishment." 
 
 " Divil a purtier 1 Come, thin, let us get a lot o' the neigh- 
 bours, and set about it, poor bouchal. Who knows but it may 
 bring down a blessin' upon us, aither in this world or the 
 next ? " 
 
 " Amin 1 I pray Gorra 1 an' so it will, sure ; doesn't the 
 Catechiz say it ? ' There is but one Church,' says the Catechiz,
 
 53 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 ' one Faith, an' one Baptism.' Bedad, there's a power o' fine 
 larnin' in the same Catechiz, so there is, an' mighty improvin'." 
 
 An Irishman never works for wages with half the zeal which 
 he displays when working con amore. Ere many hours had 
 passed, a number of the- neighbours had assembled, and Jemmy 
 found himself on a bunch of clean straw in a little shed erected 
 for him at the edge of the road. 
 
 Perhaps it would be impossible to conceive a more gloomy 
 state of misery than that in which young M'Evoy found himself. 
 Stretched on the side of the public road, in a shed formed of a 
 few loose sticks covered over with "scraws" that is, the sward 
 of the earth pared into thin stripes removed about fifty perches 
 from any human habitation his body racked with a furious and 
 oppressive fever his mind conscious of all the horrors by 
 which he was surrounded without the comforts even of a bed 
 or bed-clothes and, what was worst of all, those from whom he 
 might expect kindness afraid to approach him ! Lying helpless, 
 under these circumstances, it ought not to be wondered at if he 
 wished that death might at once close his extraordinary suffer- 
 ings, and terminate those struggles which filial piety had 
 prompted him to encounter. 
 
 This certainly is a dark picture, but our humble hero knew 
 that even there the power and goodness of God could support 
 him. The boy trusted in God ; and when removed into his 
 little shed, and stretched upon his clean straw, he felt that his 
 situation was, in good sooth, comfortable, when contrasted with 
 what it might have been if left to perish behind a ditch, exposed 
 to the scorching heat of the sun by day, and the dews of heaven 
 by night. He felt the hand of God even in this, and placed 
 himself, with a short but fervent prayer, under his fatherly 
 protection. 
 
 Irishmen, however, are not just that description of persons 
 who can pursue their usual avocations and see a fellow- 
 creature die without such attentions as they can afford him; 
 not precisely so bad as that, gentle reader ! Jemmy had not 
 been two hours on his straw when a second shed, much 
 larger than his own, was raised within a dozen yards of it. 
 In this a fire was lit ; a small pot was then procured, milk 
 was sent in, and such other little comforts brought together 
 as they supposed necessary for the sick boy. Having accom- 
 plished these matters, a kind of guard was set to watch and 
 nurse-tend him ; a pitchfork was got, on the prongs of which 
 they intended to reach him bread across the ditch ; and a long- 
 shafted shovel was borrowed, on which to furnish him drink
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR, 59 
 
 with safety to themselves. That inextinguishable vein of 
 humour, which in Ireland mingles even with death and calamity, 
 was also visible here. The ragged, half-starved creatures 
 laughed heartily at the oddity of their own inventions, and 
 enjoyed the ingenuity with which they made shift to meet the 
 exigencies of the occasion, without in the slightest degree 
 having their sympathy and concern for the afflicted youth 
 lessened. 
 
 When their arrangements were completed, one of them (he 
 of the scythe) made a little whey, which, in lieu of a spoon, he 
 stirred with the end of his tobacco knife ; he then extended it 
 across the ditch upon the shovel, after having put it in a tin 
 porringer. 
 
 " Do you want a taste o' whey, avourneen ? " 
 
 " Oh, I do," replied Jemmy ; " give me a drink, for God's 
 sake." 
 
 "There it is, a bouchal, on the shovel. Musha if myself 
 rightly knows what side you're lyin' an, or I'd put it as near 
 your lips as I could. Come, man, be stout, don't be cast down, 
 at all at all ; sure, bud-an-age, we're shovellin' the whey to you, 
 anyhow." 
 
 " I have it," replied the boy " oh, I have it. May God never 
 forget this to you, whoever you are !" 
 
 " Faith, if you want to know who I am, I'm Pether Connor 
 the mower, that never seen to-morrow. Be gorra, poor boy, 
 you mustn't let your spirits down, at all at all. Sure the neigh- 
 bours is all bint to watch an' take care of you. May I take 
 away the shovel ? an' they've built a brave snug shed here 
 beside yours, where they'll stay wid you time about until you 
 get well. We'll feed you wid whey enough, bekase we've made 
 up our minds to stale lots o' sweet milk for you. Ned Branagan 
 an' I will milk Rody Hartigan's cows to-night, wid the help o' 
 God. Divil a bit sin in it, so there isn't, an' if there is, too, be 
 my sowl there's no harm in it, anyway for he's but a nager 
 himself, the same Rody. So, acushla, keep a light heart, for, 
 be gorra, you're sure o' the thin pair o' trowsers, anyhow. 
 Don't think you're desarted for you're not. It's all in regard 
 o' bein' afeard o' this faver, or it's not this way you'd be ; but, 
 as I said a while agone, when you want anything, spake, for 
 you'll still find two or three of us beside you here, night an' 
 day. Now won't you promise to keep your mind asy, when you 
 know that we're beside you ?'' 
 
 " God bless you," replied Jemmy, " you've taken a weight off 
 my heart. I thought I'd die wid nobody near me at all."
 
 60 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 " Oh, the sorra fear of it. Keep your heart up. We'll stale 
 lots o' milk for you. Bad scran to the baste in the parish but 
 we'll milk, sooner nor you'd want the whey, you crathur, you." 
 
 The boy felt relieved, but his malady increased ; and were it 
 not that the confidence of being thus watched and attended to 
 supported him, it is more than probable he would have sunk 
 under it. 
 
 When the hour of closing the day's labour arrived, Major 
 
 came down to inspect the progress which his mowers had 
 made, and the goodness of the crop upon his meadows. No 
 sooner was he perceived at a distance than the scythes were 
 instantly resumed, and the mowers pursued their employment 
 with an appearance of zeal and honesty that could not be 
 suspected. 
 
 On arriving at the meadows, however, he was evidently 
 startled at the miserable day's work they had performed. 
 
 " Why, Connor," said he, addressing the nurse-tender, " how 
 is this ? I protest you have not performed half a day's labour 1 
 This is miserable and shameful." 
 
 " Bedad, major, it's thrue for your honour, sure enough. It's 
 a poor day's work, the never a doubt of it. But be all the 
 books that never was opened or shut, busier men nor we were 
 since mornin' couldn't be had for love or money. You see, 
 major, these meadows bad luck to them ! God pardon me 
 for cursin' the harmless crathurs, for sure, 'tisn't their fau't, sir ; 
 but you see, major, I'll insinse you into it. Now look here, 
 your honour. Did you ever see deeper meadow nor that same 
 since you war foal hem! since you war born, your honour? 
 Maybe your honour, major, ud just take the scythe an' sthrive 
 to cut a swaythe ? " 
 
 " Nonsense, Connor ; don't you know I cannot." 
 
 " Thin, be gorra, sir, I wisht you could thry it. I'd kiss the 
 book, we did more labour, an' worked harder this day, nor any 
 day for the last fortnight. If it was light grass, sir see here, 
 major, here's a light bit now, look at how the scythe runs 
 through it ! Thin look at here agin jist observe this, major 
 why, murdher alive, don't you see how slow she goes through 
 that where the grass is heavy? Bedad, major, you'll be made 
 up this season wid your hay, anyhow. Divil carry the finer 
 meadow ever I put scythe in nor the same meadow, God bless 
 it!" 
 
 " Yes, I see it, Connor. I agree with you as to its goodness. 
 But the reason of that is, Connor, that I always direct my 
 steward myself in laying it down for grass. Yes, you're right,
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 61 
 
 Connor ; if the meadow were light, you could certainly mow 
 comparatively a greater space in a day." 
 
 " Be the livin' farmer, God pardon me for swearin', it's a 
 pleasure to have dalin's wid a gintleman like you, that knows 
 things as cute as if you war a mower yourself, your honour. 
 Bedad, I'll go bail, sir, it wouldn't be hard to tache you that 
 same." 
 
 " Why, to tell you the truth, Connor, you have hit me off 
 pretty well. I'm beginning to get a taste for agriculture." 
 
 " But," said Connor, scratching his head, " won't your honour 
 allow us the price of a glass, or a pint o' porther, for our hard 
 day's work ? Bad cess to me, sir, but this meadow '11 play the 
 puck wid us afore we get it finished. Atween ourselves, sir if 
 it wouldn't be takin' freedoms if you'd look to your wn 
 {axmvc? yourself. The steward, sir, is a dacent kind of man, but, 
 sowl, he couldn't hould a candle to your honour in seem' to the 
 best way of doin' a thing, sir. Won't you allow us glasses 
 apiece, your honour ? Faix, we're kilt entirely, so we are." 
 
 " Here is half-a-crown among you, Connor ; but don't get 
 drunk." 
 
 " Dhrunk ! Musha, long may you reign, sir 1 Be the scythe 
 in my hand, I'd rather och, faix, you're one o' the ould sort, 
 sir the raal Irish gintleman, your honour. An" sure your 
 name's far an' near for that, anyhow." 
 
 Connor's face would have done the heart of Brooke or 
 Cruikshank good, had either of them seen it charged with 
 humour so rich as that which beamed from it when the 
 Major left them to enjoy their own comments upon what had 
 happened. 
 
 " Oh, be the livin' farmer," said Connor, "are we alive at all 
 afthcr doirt the major ! Oh, thin, the curse o' the crows upon 
 you, major darlin', but you are a Mantis ! The damn' rip o' 
 the world, that wouldn't give the breath he breathes to the poor 
 for God's sake, an' he'll threivn a man half-a-crown that'll 
 blarney him for farmin', an' him doesn't know the differ atween 
 a Cork -red an' a Yal low-leg ! " 
 
 " Faith, he's the boy that knows how to make a Judy of 
 himself, anyway, Pether," exclaimed another. "The divil a 
 hapurth asier nor to give these quality the bag to hould, so 
 there isn't an' they think themselves so cute, too 1" 
 
 " Augh ! " said a third, " couldn't a man find the soft side o' 
 them as asy as make out the way to his own nose widout bein' 
 led to it? Divil a sin it is to do them, anyway. Sure he thinks 
 we wor tooth an' nail at the meadow all day ; an' methought 
 
 6
 
 62 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 I'd never recover it, to see Pether here the rise he tuck out of 
 him ! Ha, ha, ha och, och murdher, oh ! " 
 
 " Faith," exclaimed Connor, "'twas good, you see, to help 
 the poor scholar ; only for it we couldn't get shkamin' the half- 
 crown out of him. I think we ought to give the crathur half of 
 it, an' him so sick he'll be wantin' it worse nor ourselves." 
 
 " Oh, be gorra, he's fairly entitled to that. I vote him fifteen 
 pince." 
 
 " Surely ! " they exclaimed unanimously " tundher-an'-turf, 
 wasn't he the manes of gettin' it for us ?" 
 
 "Jimmy, a bouchal," said Connor, across the ditch to M'Evoy, 
 " are you sleepin' ?" 
 
 " Sleepin' ! Oh, no," replied Jemmy ; " I'd give the wide 
 world for one wink of asy sleep." 
 
 " Well, aroon, here's fifteen pince for you, that we shkam 
 
 will I tell him how we got it ?" 
 
 "No, don't," replied his neighbours; "the boy's given to 
 devotion, an' maybe might scruple to take it." 
 
 " Here's fifteen pince, avourneen, on the shovel, that we're 
 giving you for God's sake. If you over 1 this, won't you offer up 
 a prayer for us ? Won't you, avick ? " 
 
 " I can never forget your kindness," replied Jemmy. " I will 
 always pray for you, an' may God for ever bless you an' yours." 
 
 "Poor crathur! May the heavens above have prosthration 
 on him 1 Upon my sowl, it's good to have his blessin' an' his 
 prayer. Now don't fret, Jimmy ; we're lavin' you wid a lot o" 
 neighbours here. They'll watch you time about, so that whin 
 you want anything, call, avourneen, an' there'll still be some one 
 here to answer. God bless you, an' restore you, till we come 
 wid the milk we'll stale for you wid the help o' God. Bad cess 
 to me, but it ud be a mortual sin, so it would, to let the poor 
 boy die at all, an' him so far from home. For, as the Catechiz 
 says, ' There is but one Faith, one Church, and one Baptism ! ' 
 Well, the readin' that's in that Catechiz is mighty improving 
 glory be to God ! " 
 
 It would be utterly impossible to detail the affliction which 
 our poor scholar suffered in this wretched shed for the space of 
 a fortnight, notwithstanding the efforts of those kind-hearted 
 people to render his situation comfortable. 
 
 The little wigwam they had constructed near him was never, 
 even for a moment, during his whole illness without two 01 
 three persons ready to attend him. In the evening their 
 
 1 That is, to get over to survive.
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 63 
 
 numbets increased ; a fire was always kept burning, over which 
 a little pot for making whey or gruel was suspended. At night 
 they amused each other with anecdotes and laughter, and 
 occasionally with songs, when certain that their patient was not 
 asleep. Their excursions to steal milk for him were performed 
 with uncommon glee, and related among themselves with great 
 humour. These thefts would have been unnecessary had not 
 the famine which then prevailed through the province been so 
 excessive. The crowds that swarmed about the houses of 
 wealthy farmers, supplicating a morsel to keep body and soul 
 together, resembled nothing which our English readers ever 
 had an opportunity of seeing. Ragged, emaciated creatures 
 tottered about with an expression of wildness and voracity in 
 their gaunt features; fathers and mothers reeled under the 
 burthen of their beloved children, the latter either sick or 
 literally expiring for want of food ; and the widow, in many 
 instances, was compelled to lay down her head to die with the 
 wail, the feeble wail, of her withered orphans mingling with her 
 last moans ! In such a state of things it was difficult to procure 
 a sufficient quantity of milk to allay the unnatural thirst even of 
 one individual, when parched by the scorching heat of a fever. 
 Notwithstanding this, his wants were for the most part antici- 
 pated, so far as their means would allow them; his shed was 
 kept waterproof; and either shovel or pitchfork always ready to 
 be extended to him by way of substitution for the right hand of 
 fellowship. 
 
 When he called for anything, the usual observation was, 
 "Husht ! the crathur's callin' ; I must take the shovel an' see 
 what he wants." 
 
 There were times, it is true, when the mirth of the poor 
 fellows was very low, for hunger was generally among them- 
 selves ; there were times when their own little shed presented 
 a touching and melancholy spectacle perhaps we ought 
 also to add, a noble one ; for to contemplate a number of 
 men, considered rude and semi-barbarous, devoting them- 
 selves, in the midst of privations the most cutting and oppres- 
 sive, to the care and preservation of a strange lad, merely 
 because they knew him to be without friends and protection, is 
 to witness a display of virtue truly magnanimous. The food on 
 which some of the persons were occasionally compelled to live 
 was blood boiled up with a little oatmeal ; for when a season of 
 famine occurs in Ireland, the people usually bleed the cows and 
 bullocks to preserve themselves from actual starvation. It is 
 truly a sight of appalling misery to behold feeble women gliding
 
 64 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 across the country, carrying their cans and pitchers, actually 
 trampling upon fertility and fatness, and collected in the corner 
 of some grazier's farm, waiting, gaunt and ravenous as Ghouls, 
 for their portion of blood. During these melancholy periods of 
 want, everything in the shape of an esculent disappears. The 
 miserable creatures will pick up chickenweed, nettles, sorrel, 
 bugloss, preshagh, and sea-weed, which they will boil and eat 
 with the voracity of persons writhing under the united agonies 
 of hunger and death ! Yet, singular to say, the very country 
 thus groaning under such a terrible sweep of famine is actually 
 pouring from all her ports a profusion of food, day after day ; 
 flinging it from her fertile bosom with the wanton excess of a 
 prodigal oppressed by abundance. 
 
 Despite, however, of all that the poor scholar's nurse-guard 
 suffered, he was attended with a fidelity of care and sympathy 
 which no calamity could shake. Nor was this care fruitless ; 
 after the fever had passed through its usual stages, he began to 
 recover. In fact, it has been observed, very truly, that scarcely 
 any person has been known to die under circumstances similar 
 to those of the poor scholar. These sheds, the erection of 
 which is not unfrequent in case of fever, have the advantage of 
 pure free air, by which the patient is cooled and refreshed. 
 Be the cause of it what it may, the fact has been established, 
 and we feel satisfaction in being able to adduce our humble 
 hero as an additional proof of the many recoveries which 
 take place in situations apparently so unfavourable to human 
 life. But how is it possible to detail what M'Evoy suffered 
 during this fortnight of intense agony? Not those who can 
 command the luxuries of life not those who can reach 
 its comforts nor those who can supply themselves with 
 its bare necessaries neither the cotter who struggles to sup- 
 port his wife and helpless children the mendicant who begs 
 from door to door nor even the felon in his cell can imagine 
 what he felt in the solitary misery of his feverish bed. Hard is 
 the heart that cannot feel his sorrows, when, stretched beside 
 the common way, without a human face to look on, he called 
 upon the mother whose brain, had she known his situation, 
 would have been riven whose affectionate heart would have 
 been broken by the knowledge of his affliction. It was a 
 situation which afterwards appeared to him dark and terrible. 
 The pencil of the painter could not depict it, nor the pen of the 
 poet describe it, except like a dim vision, which neither the 
 heart nor the imagination are able to give to the world as a 
 tale steeped in the sympathies excited by reality.
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR, 65 
 
 His whole heart and soul, as he afterwards acknowledged, 
 were during his trying illness at home. The voices of his 
 parents, of his sisters, and of his brothers were always in his 
 ears ; their countenances surrounded his cold and lonely shed ; 
 their hands touched him ; their eyes looked upon him in 
 sorrow, and their tears bedewed him. Even there, the light of 
 l.is mother's love, though she herself was distant, shone upon 
 his sorrowful couch ; and he has declared that in no past 
 moment of affection did his soul ever burn with a sense of its 
 presence so strongly as it did in the heart-dreams of his severest 
 illness. But God is love, " and tempereth the wind to the shorn 
 lamb." 
 
 Much of all his sufferings would have been alleviated were it 
 not that his two best friends in the parish, Thady and the 
 curate, had been both prostrated by the fever at the same 
 time with himself. There was consequently no person of 
 respectability in the neighbourhood cognisant of his situation. 
 He was left to the humbler class of the peasantry, and honour- 
 ably did they, with all their errors and ignorances, discharge 
 those duties which greater wealth and greater knowledge 
 would probably have left unperformed. 
 
 On the morning of the last day he ever intended to spend in 
 the shed, at eleven o'clock, he heard the sounds of horses' feet 
 passing along the road. The circumstance was one quite 
 familiar to him ; but these horsemen, whoever they might be, 
 stopped, and immediately after two respectable-looking men, 
 dressed in black, approached him. His forlorn state and 
 frightfully-wasted appearance startled them, and the younger 
 of the two asked, in a tone of voice which went directly to his 
 heart, how it was they found him in a situation so desolate. 
 
 The kind interest implied by the words, and probably a sense 
 of his utterly destitute state, affected him strongly, and he burst 
 into tears. The strangers looked at each other, then at him ; 
 and if looks could express sympathy, theirs expressed it. 
 
 " My good boy," said the first, " how is it that we find you in 
 a situation so deplorable and wretched as this ? Who are you, 
 or why is it that you have not a friendly roof to shelter you?" 
 
 "I'm a poor scholar,'' replied Jemmy, "the son of honest 
 but reduced parents. I came to this part of the country with 
 the intention of preparing myself for Maynooth, and, if it might 
 plase God, with the hope of being able to raise them out of 
 their distress." 
 
 The strangers looked more earnestly at the boy ; sickness 
 had touched his fine intellectual features into a purity of
 
 66 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 expression almost ethereal. His fair skin appeared nearly 
 transparent, and the light of truth and candour lit up his 
 countenance with a lustre which affliction could not dim. 
 
 The other stranger approached him more nearly, stooped for 
 a moment, and felt his pulse. 
 
 " How long have you been in this country ?" he inquired. 
 
 " Nearly three years." 
 
 " You have been ill of the fever which is so prevalent ; but 
 how did you come to be left to the chance of perishing upon 
 the highway ? " 
 
 " Why, sir, the people were afeard to let me into their houses 
 in consequence of the faver. I got ill in school, sir, but no boy 
 would venture to bring me home, an' the master turned me out, 
 to die, I believe. May God forgive him ! " 
 
 "Who was your master, my child ?" 
 
 "The great Mr. , sir. If Mr. O'Brien, the curate of the 
 
 parish, hadn't been ill himself at the same time, or if Mr. 
 O'Rorke's son, Thady, hadn't been laid on his back too, sir, I 
 wouldn't suffer what I did." 
 
 " Has the curate been kind to you ?'' 
 
 " Sir, only for him and the big boys I couldn't stay in the 
 school, on account of the master's cruelty, particularly since my 
 money was out." 
 
 "You are better now are you not? 3 ' said the other 
 gentleman. 
 
 "Thank God, sir ! oh, thanks be to the Almighty, I am ! I 
 expect to be able to lave this place to-day or to-morrow." 
 
 "And where do you intend to go when you recover ?" 
 
 The boy himself had not thought of this, and the question 
 came on him so unexpectedly that he could only reply 
 
 " Indeed, sir, I don't know." 
 
 "Had you," inquired the second stranger, "testimonials from 
 your parish priest?" 
 
 " I had, sir ; they are in the hands of Mr. O'Brien. I also 
 had a character from my father's landlord." 
 
 "But how," asked the other, "have you existed here during 
 your illness ? Have you been long sick ?" 
 
 " Indeed, I can't tell you, sir, for I don't know how the time 
 passed at all ; but I know, sir, that there were always two 
 or three people attendin' me. They sent me whatever they 
 thought I wanted upon a shovel or a pitchfork, across the 
 ditch, because they were afraid to come near me." 
 
 During the early pnrt of the dialogue two or three old hats, 
 or caubeens, might have been seen moving steadily over from
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 67 
 
 the wigwam to the ditch which ran beside the shed occupied 
 by M'Evoy. Here they remained stationary, for those who 
 wore them were now within hearing of the conversation, and 
 ready to give their convalescent patient a good word, should it 
 be necessary. 
 
 "How were you supplied with drink and medicine?" asked 
 the younger stranger. 
 
 "As I've just told you, sir," replied Jemmy, "the neighbours 
 here let me want for nothing that they had. They kept me in 
 more whey than I could use ; and they got me medicine too, 
 some way or other. But indeed, sir, during a great part of the 
 time I was ill, I can't say how they attended me ; I wasn't 
 sensible, sir, of what was goin' on about me." 
 
 One of those who lay behind the ditch now arose, and, after a 
 few hems and scratchings of the head, ventured to join in the 
 conversation. 
 
 " Pray have you, my man," said the elder of the two, "been 
 acquainted with the circumstances of this boy's illness ?" 
 
 " Is it the poor scholar, my lord P 1 Oh, thin, bedad, it's 
 myself that has that. The poor crathur was in a terrible way 
 all out, so he was. He caught the faver in the school beyant 
 one day, an' was turned out by the nager o' the world that he 
 was larnin' from." 
 
 "Are you one of the persons who attended him?" 
 
 " Och, och, the crathur ! what could unsignified people like 
 us do for him, barrin' a thrifle? Anyhow, my lord, it's the 
 meracle o' the world that he was ever able to over it at all. 
 Wiiy, sir, good luck to the one of him but suffered as much, wid 
 the help o' God. as ud overcome fifty men ! " 
 
 " How did you provide him with drink at such a distance 
 from any human habitation ? " 
 
 " Throth, hard enough we found it, sir, to do that same ; but 
 sure, whether or not, my lord, we couldn't be sich nagers as 
 to let him die all out, for want o' somethin' to moisten his 
 throath wid." 
 
 " I hope," inquired the other, " you had nothing to do in the 
 milk-stealing which has produced such an outcry in this 
 immediate neighbourhood ? " 
 
 " Milk-stalin' 1 Oh, bedad, sir, there never was the likes 
 known afore in the counthry. The Lord forgive them that did 
 it 1 Be gorra, sir, the wickedness o' the people's mighty 
 improvin', if one ud take warnin 1 by it, glory be to God 1" 
 
 1 The peasantry always address a Roman Catholic bishop as "my 
 lord."
 
 68 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 " Many of the farmers' cows have been milked at night, 
 Connor perfectly drained even my own cows have not 
 escaped ; and we who have suffered are certainly determined, 
 if possible, to ascertain those who have committed the theft. I, 
 for my part, have gone even beyond my ability in relieving the 
 wants of the poor during this period of sickness and famine ; I 
 therefore deserved this the less." 
 
 " By the powers, your honour, if any gintleman desarved to 
 have his cows unmtlked, it's yourself. But, as I said this minute, 
 there's no end to the wickedness o' the people, so there's not, 
 although the Catechiz is against them for, says it, 'there is but 
 one Faith, one Church, an' one Baptism.' Now, sir, isn't it quare 
 that people, wid sich words in the book afore them, won't be 
 guided by it ? I suppose they thought it only a white sin, sir, 
 to take the milk, the thieves o' the world." 
 
 " Maybe, your honour," said another, "that it was only to keep 
 the life in some poor sick crathur, that wanted it more nor you 
 nor the farmers, that they did it. There's some o' the same 
 farmers desarve worse, for they're keepin' up the prices o' their 
 male an' praties upon the poor, an' did so all along, that they 
 might make money by our outher distitution." 
 
 "That is no justification for theft," observed the graver of the 
 two. " Does any one among you suspect those who committed 
 it in this instance ? It you do, I command you, as your bishop, 
 to mention them." 
 
 " How, for instance," added the other, " were you able to 
 supply this sick boy with whey during his illness ?" 
 
 " Oh, thin, gintlemen," replied Connor, dexterously parrying 
 the question, " but it's a mighty improvin' thing to see our own 
 bishop God spare his lordship to us ! an' the Protestant 
 minister o' the parish joinin' together to relieve an' give good 
 advice to the poor ! Bedad, it's settin' a fine example, so it is, 
 to the quality, if they'd take patthern by it." 
 
 " Reply," said the bishop, rather sternly, " to the questions we 
 have asked you." 
 
 " The quistions, your lordship ? It's proud an' happy we'd 
 be to do what you want ; but the sarra man among us can do it, 
 barrin' we'd say what we ought not to say. That's the truth, 
 my lord ; an' surely 'tisn't your gracious reverence that ud want 
 us to go beyant it ? " 
 
 " Certainly not," replied the bishop. " I warn you against 
 both falsehood and fraud two charges which might frequently 
 be brought against you in your intercourse with the gentry of 
 the country, whom you seldom scruple to deceive and mislead
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 69 
 
 by gliding into a character, when speaking to them, that is often 
 the reverse of your real one ; whilst, at the same time, you are 
 both honest and sincere to persons of your class. Put away this 
 practice, for it is both sinful and discreditable." 
 
 " God bless your lordship ! an' many thanks to your gracious 
 reverence for advisin' us ! Well we know that it's the blessed 
 thing to folly your words." 
 
 " Bring over that naked, starved-looking man who is stirring 
 the fire under that pot," said the rector ; "he looks like famine 
 itself." 
 
 " Paddy Dunn, will you come over here to his honour, 
 Paddy ? He's goin' to give you somethin'," said Connor, adding 
 of his own accord the last clause of the message. 
 
 The tattered creature approached him with a gleam of expec- 
 tation in his eyes that appeared like insanity. 
 
 " God bless your honour for your goodness ! " exclaimed 
 Paddy. " It's me that's in it, sir ! Paddy Dunn, sir, sure 
 enough ; but indeed I'm the next thing to my own ghost, sir, 
 now God help me !" 
 
 " What, and for whom, are you cooking ?" 
 
 " Jist the smallest clhrop in life, sir, o' gruel, to keep the sowl 
 in that lonely crathur, sir, the poor scholar." 
 
 " Pray how long is it since you have eaten anything your- 
 self?" 
 
 The tears burst from the eyes of the miserable creature as he 
 replied 
 
 " Before God in glory, your honour, an 1 in presence of his 
 lordship here, I only got about what ud make betther nor half 
 a male widin the last day, sir. 'Twas a weeshy grain o' male 
 that I got from a friend ; an' as Ned Connor here tould me 
 that this crathur had nothin' to make the gruel for him, why I 
 shared it wid him, bekase he couldn't even beg it, sir, if he 
 wanted it, an' him not able to walk yit." 
 
 The worthy pastor's eyes glistened with a moisture that did 
 him honour. Without a word of observation he slipped a crown 
 into the hand of Dunn, who looked at it as if he had been 
 paralysed. 
 
 " Oh, thin," said he fervently, " may every hair on your 
 honour's head become a mould-candle to light you into glory ! 
 The world's goodness is in your heart, sir ; an' may all the 
 blcssin's of heaven rain down upon you an' yours !" 
 
 The two gentlemen then gave assistance to the poor scholar, 
 whom the bishop addressed in kind and encouraging language. 
 
 " Come to me, my good boy," he added, " and if, on further
 
 70 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 inquiry, I find that your conduct has been such as I believe it 
 to have been, you may rest assured, provided also you continue 
 worthy of my good opinion, that I shall be a friend and a 
 protector to you. Call on me when you get well, and I will 
 speak to you at greater length." 
 
 " Well," observed Connor, when they were gone, " the divil's 
 own hard puzzle the bishop had me in about stalin' the milk. 
 It wint agin the grain wid me to tell him the lie, so I had to 
 invint a bit o' thruth to keep my conscience clear ; for sure there 
 was not a man among us that could tell him, barrin' we said 
 what we oughtrft to say. Doesn't all the world know that a 
 man oughtn't to condimn himself 1 That was thruth, anyway ; 
 but divil a scruple I'd have in bammirf the other not but that 
 he's one o 5 the best of his sort. Paddy Dunn, quit lookin' at 
 that crown, but get the shovel an' give the boy his dhrink he's 
 wantin' it." 
 
 The agitation of spirits produced by Jemmy's cheering inter- 
 view with the bishop was, for two or three days afterwards, 
 somewhat prejudicial to his convalescence. In less than a 
 week, however, he was comfortably settled with Mr. O'Rorke's 
 family, whose kindness proved to him quite as warm as he had 
 expected. 
 
 When he had remained with them a few days, he resolved to 
 recommence his studies under his tyrant master. He certainly 
 knew that his future attendance at the school would be penal to 
 him, but he had always looked forward to the accomplishment 
 of his hopes as a task of difficulty and distress. The severity to 
 be expected from the master could not, he thought, be greater 
 than that which he had already suffered ; he therefore decided, 
 if possible, to complete his education under him. 
 
 The school, when Jemmy appeared in it, had been for more 
 than an hour assembled, but the thinness of the attendance not 
 only proved the woful prevalence of sickness and distress in 
 the parish, but sharpened the pedagogue's vinegar aspect into 
 an expression of countenance singularly peevish and gloomy. 
 When the lad entered a murmur of pleasure and welcome ran 
 through the scholars, and joy beamed forth from every 
 countenance but that of his teacher. When the latter noticed 
 this, his irritability rose above restraint, and he exclaimed 
 
 " Silence ! and apply to business, or I shall cause some of 
 you to denude immediately. No school ever can prosper in 
 which that hirudo, called a poor scholar, is permitted toleration. 
 I thought, sarra, I told you to nidificate, and hatch your wild 
 project undlier some other wing than mine."
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 71 
 
 " I only entrate you," replied our poor hero, " to suffer me to 
 join the class I left while I was sick for about another year. 
 I'll be very quiet and humble, and, as far as I can, will do 
 everything you wish me." 
 
 " Ah ! you are a crawling reptile," replied the savage, " and, 
 in my opinion, nothing but a chate and impostor. I think you 
 have imposed yourself on Mr. O'Brien for what you are not 
 that is, the son of an honest man. I have no doubt but many 
 of your nearest relations died after having seen their own 
 funerals. Your mother, you runagate, wasn't your father's 
 wife, I'll be bail." 
 
 The spirit of the boy could bear this no longer; his eyes 
 flashed, and his sinews stood out in the energy of deep indig- 
 nation. 
 
 " It is false," he exclaimed; "it is as false as your own cruel 
 and cowardly heart, you wicked and unprincipled tyrant ! In 
 everything you have said of my father, mother, and friends, and 
 of myself too, you are a liar, from the hat on your head to the 
 dirt undher your feet a liar, a coward, and a villain ! " 
 
 The fury of the miscreant was ungovernable. He ran at the 
 still feeble lad, and, by a stroke of his fist, dashed him senseless 
 to the earth. There were now no large boys in the school to 
 curb his resentment, he therefore kicked him in the back when 
 he fell. Many voices exclaimed in alarm, " Oh ! masther, sir, 
 don't kill him ! Oh 1 sir, dear, don't kill him 1 Don't kill poor 
 Jimmy, sir, an' him still sick ! " 
 
 " Kill him !" replied the master "kill him, indeed 1 Faith, 
 he'd be no common man who could kill him ; he has as many 
 lives in him as a cat ! Sure he can live behind a ditch, wid the 
 faver on his back, widout dying ; and he would live if he was 
 stuck on the spire of a steeple." 
 
 In the meantime the boy gave no symptoms of returning life, 
 and the master, after desiring a few of the scholars to bring him 
 out to the air, became pale as death with apprehension. He 
 immediately withdrew to his private apartment, which joined 
 the schoolroom, and sent out his wife to assist in restoring him 
 to animation. With some difficulty this was accomplished. The 
 unhappy boy at once remembered what had just occurred, and 
 the bitter tears gushed from his eyes, as he knelt down and 
 exclaimed, " Merciful Father of heaven and earth, have pity on 
 me ! You see my heart, great God 1 and what I did, I did for 
 the best" 
 
 "Avourneen," said the woman, "he's passionate, an' never 
 mind him. Come in an' beg his pardon for callin' him a liar,
 
 72 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 an' I'll become spokesman for you myself. Come, acushla, an' 
 I'll get lave for you to stay in the school still." 
 
 "Oh, I'm hurtedl" said the poor youth "I'm hurled 
 inwardly somewhere about the back and about my ribs ! " 
 The pain he felt brought the tears down his pale cheeks. " I 
 wish I was at home ! " said he. " I'll give up all and go 
 home ! " The lonely boy then laid his head upon his hands, as 
 he sat on the ground, and indulged in a long burst of sorrow. 
 
 " Well," said a manly-looking little fellow, whilst the tears 
 stood in his eyes, " I'll tell my father this, anyhow. I know he 
 won't let me come to this school any more. Here, Jimmy, is a 
 piece of my bread ; maybe it will do you good." 
 
 " I couldn't taste it, Frank dear," said Jemmy; "God bless 
 you ! but I couldn't taste it." 
 
 " Do," said Frank ; " maybe it will bate back the pain." 
 
 " Don't ask me, Frank dear," said Jemmy ; " I couldn't ate 
 it ; I'm hurted inwardly." 
 
 " Bad luck to me ! " exclaimed the indignant boy, " if ever 
 my ten toes will darken this school door agin. By the livin' 
 farmer, if they ax me at home to do it, I'll run away to my 
 uncle's, so I will. Wait, Jimmy, I'll be big yet ; an' be the 
 blessed gospel that's about my neck, I'll give the same masther 
 a shirtful of sore bones, the holy an' blessed minute I'm able to 
 do it." 
 
 Many of the other boys declared that they would acquaint 
 their friends with the master's cruelty to the poor scholar ; but 
 Jemmy requested them not to do so, and said that he was 
 determined to return home the moment he should be able to 
 travel. 
 
 The affrighted woman could not prevail upon him to seek a 
 reconciliation with her husband, although the expressions of the 
 other scholars induced her to press him to it, even to entreaty. 
 Jemmy arose, and with considerable difficulty reached the 
 cm a:e's house, found him at home, and, with tears in his eyes 
 related to him the atrocious conduct of the master. 
 
 "Very well," said this excellent man, " I am glad that I can 
 
 venture to ride as far as Colonel B 's to-morrow. You 
 
 must accompany me ; for decidedly such brutality cannot be 
 permitted to go unpunished." 
 
 Jemmy knew that the curate was his friend; and although he 
 would not himself have thought of summoning the master to 
 answer for his barbarity, yet he acquiesced in the curate's opinion. 
 He stopped that night in the house of the worthy man to whom 
 Mr. O'Brien had recommended him on his first entering the
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 73 
 
 town. It appeared in the morning, however, that he was unable 
 to walk ; the blows which he had received were then felt by him 
 to be more dangerous than. had been supposed. Mr. O'Brien, 
 on being informed of this, procured a jaunting car, on which 
 they both sat, and, at an easy pace, reached the colonel's 
 residence. 
 
 The curate was shown into an anteroom, and Jemmy sat in 
 the hall; the colonel joined the former in a few minutes. He 
 had been in England and on the Continent, accompanied by his 
 family, for nearly the last three years, but had just returned in 
 order to take possession of a large property in land and money, 
 to which he succeeded at a very critical moment, for his own 
 estates were heavily encumbered. He was now proprietor of an 
 additional estate, the rent-roll of which was six thousand pel 
 annum, and also master of eighty-five thousand pounds in the 
 funds. 
 
 Mr. O'Brien, after congratulating him upon his good fortune, 
 introduced the case of our hero as one which, in his opinion, 
 called for the colonel's interposition as a magistrate. 
 
 "I have applied to you, sir," he proceeded, "rather than to 
 any other of the neighbouring gentlemen, because I think this 
 friendless lad has a peculiar claim upon any good offices you 
 could render him." 
 
 "A claim upon me ! how is that, Mr. O'Brien?" 
 
 "The boy, sir, is not a native of this province. His father 
 was formerly a tenant of yours a man, as I have reason to 
 believe, remarkable for good conduct and industry. It appears 
 that his circumstances, so long as he was your tenant, were 
 those of a comfortable independent fanner. If the story which 
 his son relates be true and I, for one, believe it his family 
 have been dealt with in a manner unusually cruel and 
 iniquitous. Your present agent, colonel, who is known in his 
 own neighbourhood by the nickname of Yellow Sam, thrust 
 him out of his farm, when his wife was sick, for the purpose of 
 putting into it a man who had married his illegitimate daughter. 
 If this be found a correct account of the transaction, I have 
 
 no hesitation in saying that you, Colonel B , as a gentleman 
 
 of honour and humanity, will investigate the conduct of your 
 agent, and see justice done to an honest man who must have 
 been oppressed in your name, and under colour of your 
 authority." 
 
 " If my agent has dared to be unjust to a worthy tenant," 
 said the colonel, "in order to prqvide for his bastard, by my 
 sacred honour, he shall cease to be an agent of mine 1 I admit,
 
 74 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 certainly, that from some circumstances which transpired a 
 few years ago I had reason to suspect his integrity. That, to 
 be sure, was only so far as he and I were concerned ; but, on 
 the other hand, during one or two visits I made to the estate 
 which he manages, I heard the tenants thank and praise him 
 with much gratitude, and all that sort of thing. There was 
 ' Thank your honour ;' ' Long may you reign over us, sir ;' and 
 ' Oh, colonel, you've a mighty good man to your agent ;' and so 
 forth. I do not think, Mr. O'Brien, that he has acted so 
 harshly, or that he would dare to do it. Upon my honour, I 
 heard those warm expressions of gratitude from the lips of the 
 tenants themselves." 
 
 " If y< u knew the people in general, colonel, so well as I do,'' 
 replied the curate, " you would admit that such expressions are 
 often either cuttingly ironical or the result of fear. You will 
 always find, sir, that the independent portion of the people 
 have least of this forced dissimulation among them. A 
 dishonest and inhuman agent has in his own hands the 
 irresponsible power of harassing and oppressing the tenantry 
 under him. The class most hateful to the people are those low 
 wretches who spring up from nothing into wealth, accumulated 
 by dishonesty and rapacity. They are proud, overbearing, and 
 jealous, even to vindictiveness, of the least want of respect. It 
 is to such upstarts that the poorer classes are externally most 
 civil ; but it is also such persons whom they most hate and 
 abhor. They flatter them to their faces, 'tis true, even to 
 nausea; but they seldom spare them in their absence. Of 
 this very class, I believe, is your agent, Yellow Sam ; so that 
 any favourable expressions you may have heard from your 
 tenantry towards him were, most probably, the result of 
 dissimulation and fear. Besides, sir, here is a testimonial 
 from M'Evoy's parish priest, in which his father is spoken of as 
 an honest, moral, and industrious man." 
 
 " If what you say, Mr. O'Brien, is correct," observed the 
 colonel, "you know the Irish peasantry much better than I do. 
 Decidedly I have always thought them, in conversation, 
 exceedingly candid and sincere. With respect to testimonials 
 from priests to landlords in behalf of their tenants, upon my 
 honour I am sick of them. I actually received, about four 
 years ago, such an excellent character of two tenants as induced 
 me to suppose them worthy of encouragement. But what was 
 the fact ? Why, sir, they were two of the greatest firebrands 
 on my estate, and put both me and my agent to great trouble 
 and expense. No, sir, I wouldn't give a curse for a priest's
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 75 
 
 testimonials upon such an occasion. These fellows were sub- 
 sequently convicted of arson on the clearest evidence, and 
 transported." 
 
 "Well, sir, I grant that you may have been misled in that 
 instance. However, from what I have observed, the two great 
 faults of Irish landlords are these : In the first place, they 
 suffer themselves to remain ignorant of their tenantry; so 
 much so, indeed, that they frequently deny them access and 
 redress when the poor people are anxious to acquaint them 
 with their grievances ; for it is usual with landlords to refer 
 them to those very agents against whose cruelty and rapacity 
 they are appealing. This is a caite blanche to the agent to 
 trample upon them if he pleases. In the next place, Irish 
 landlords too frequently employ ignorant and needy men to 
 manage their estates ; men who have no character, no property 
 or standing in society, beyond the reputation of being keen, 
 shrewd, and active. These persons, sir, make fortunes ; and 
 what means can they have of accumulating wealth except by 
 cheating either the landlord or his tenants ? A history of their 
 conduct would be a black catalogue of dishonesty, oppression, 
 and treachery. Respectable men, resident on or near the 
 estate, possessing both character and property, should always 
 be selected for this important trust. But, above all things, 
 the curse of a tenantry is a percentage agent ; he racks, and 
 drives, and oppresses, without consideration either of market 
 or produce, in order that his receipts may be ample, and his 
 own income large." 
 
 " Why, O'Brien, you appear to be better acquainted with all 
 this sort of thing than I, who am a landed proprietor." 
 
 " By-the-bye, sir, without meaning you any disrespect, it is the 
 landlords of Ireland who know least about the great mass of its 
 inhabitants, and, I might also add, about its history, its litera- 
 ture, the manners of the people, their customs, and their 
 prejudices. The peasantry know this, and too often practise 
 upon their ignorance. There is a landlord's Vade mecum sadly 
 wanted in Ireland, colonel." 
 
 "Ah! very good, O'Brien very good! Well, I shall cer- 
 tainly inquire into this case, and if I find that Yellow Sam has 
 been playing the oppressor, out he goes. I am now able to 
 manage him, which I could not readily do before, for, by-the-bye_ 
 he had mortgages on my property." 
 
 " I would take it, colonel, as a personal favour if you would 
 investigate the transaction I have mentioned." 
 
 " Undoubtedly I shall, and that very soon. But about this
 
 75 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 outrage committed against the boy himself? We had better 
 take his informations, and punish the fellow." 
 
 " Certainly ; I think that is the best way. His conduct to 
 the poor youth has been merciless and detestable. We must 
 put him out of this part of the country." 
 
 "Call the lad in. In this case I shall draw up the informa- 
 tions myself, although Gregg usually does that." 
 
 Jemmy, assisted by the curate, entered the room, and the 
 tmmane colonel desired him, as he appeared ill, to sit down. 
 
 " What is your name ?" asked the colonel. 
 
 "James M'Evoy, 1 ' he replied. "I'm the son, sir, of a man 
 who was once a tenant of yours." 
 
 "Ay ! and pray how did he cease to be a tenant of mine ?" 
 
 " Why, sir, your agent, Yallow Sam, put him out of our farm, 
 when my poor mother was on her sick-bed. He chated my 
 father, sir, out of some money part of our rent it was, that he 
 didn't give him a receipt for. When my father went to him 
 afterwards for the receipt, Yallow Sam abused him, and called 
 him a rogue, and that, sir, was what no man ever called my 
 father either before or since. My father, sir, threatened to tell 
 you about it, and you came to the country soon after ; but 
 Yallow Sam got very great wid my father at that time, and 
 sent him to sell bullocks for him about fifty miles off, but when 
 he came back again you had left the country. Thin, sir, Yallow 
 Sam said nothing till the next half-year's rent became due, 
 whin he came down on my father for all that is, what he 
 hadn't got the receipt for and the other gale, and, without any 
 warning in the world, put him out. My father offered to pay 
 all, but he said he was a rogue, and that you had ordered him 
 off the estate. In less than a week after this he put a man that 
 married a bastard daughter of his own into our house and 
 place. That's God's truth, sir, and you'll find it so, if you 
 inquire into it. It's a common trick of his to keep back receipts, 
 and make the tenants pay double." 1 
 
 " Sacred heaven, O'Brien, can this be possible?" 
 
 " Your best way, colonel, is to inquire into it." 
 
 " Was not your father able to educate you at home, my 
 boy ? " 
 
 " No, sir; we soon got into poverty after we left your farm ; 
 and another thing, sir, there was no Latin school in our neigh- 
 bourhood." 
 
 1 This is fact. The individual here alluded to frequently kept back 
 receipts when receiving rents, under pretence of hurry, and afterwards 
 compelled the tenants to pay the same gale twice I
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 77 
 
 " For what purpose did you become a poor scholar?" 
 
 "Why, sir, I hoped one day or other to be able to raise my 
 father and mother out of the distress that Yallow Sam brought 
 on us." 
 
 " By heaven, a noble aim, and a noble sentiment. And what 
 has this d d fellow of a schoolmaster done to you ? " 
 
 "Why, sir, yesterday, when I went back to the school, he 
 abused me, and said that he supposed most of my relations 
 were hanged spoke ill of my father, and said that my mother" 
 here the tears started to his eyes he sobbed aloud. 
 
 " Go on, and be cool," said the colonel ; " what did he say of 
 your mother?" 
 
 " He said, sir, that she was never married to my father. I 
 know I was wrong, sir but if it was the king on his throne 
 that said it of my mother, I'd call him a liar. I called him a 
 liar, and a coward, and a villain. Ay, sir, and if I had been 
 able, I would have trampled him under my feet." 
 
 The colonel looked steadily at him, but the open clear eye 
 which the boy turned upon him was full of truth and inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 "And you will find," said the soldier, "that this spirited 
 defence of your mother will be the most fortunate action of 
 your life. Well ; he struck you then, did he ?" 
 
 " He knocked me down, sir, with his fist then kicked me in 
 the back and sides. I think some of my ribs are broke." 
 
 " Ay 1 no doubt, no doubt," said the colonel. "And you were 
 only after recovering from this fever which is so prevalent ?" 
 
 " I wasn't a week out of it, sir." 
 
 "Well, my boy, we shall punish him for you." 
 
 " Sir, would you hear me for a word or two, if it would be 
 pleasing to you ?" 
 
 " Speak on, 1 ' said the colonel. 
 
 " I would rather change his punishment to I would that is 
 if it would be agreeable to you it's this, sir I wouldn't 
 throuble you now against the master, if you'd be pleased to 
 rightify my father, and punish Yallow Sam. Oh, sir, for God's 
 sake, put my heartbroken father into his farm again ! If you 
 would, sir, I could shed my blood, or lay down my life for you, 
 or for any belonging to you. I'm but a poor boy, sir, low and 
 humble ; but they say there's a greater Being than the greatest 
 in this world, that listens to the just prayers of the poor and 
 friendless. I was never happy, sir, since we left it neither was 
 any of us ; and when we'd sit, cowld and hungry, about our 
 hearth, we used to be talking of the pleasant days we spent iq 
 
 7
 
 78 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 it, till the tears would be smothered in curses against him that 
 put us out of it. Oh, sir, if you could know all that a poor and 
 honest family suffers when they are thrown into distress by want 
 of feeling in their landlords, or by the dishonesty of agents, you 
 would consider my father's case. I'm his favourite son, sir, and 
 good right have I to speak for him. If you could know the 
 sorrow, the misery, the drooping down of the spirits, that lies 
 upon the countenances and the hearts of such people, you 
 wouldn't, as a man and a Christian, think it below you to spread 
 happiness and contentment among them again. In the morning 
 they rise to a day of hardship, no mailer how bright and 
 cheerful it may be to others nor is there any hope of a 
 brighter day for them; and at night they go to their hard 
 beds to strive to sleep away their hunger in spite of cowld and 
 want. If you could see how the father of a family, afler striving 
 lo bear up, sinks down at last ; if you could see the look 
 he gives at the childre that he would lay down his hearl's 
 blood for, when they sit naked and hungry about him ; and 
 the mother, too, with her kind word and sorrowful smile, 
 proud of them in all their destitution, but her heart breaking 
 silently all the time, her face wasting away, her eye dim, 
 and her strenglh gone ! Sir, make one such family happy 
 for all this has been in my father's house 1 Give us back 
 our light spirits, our pleasant days, and our cheerful hearts 
 again 1 We lost them through the villainy of your agent. Give 
 them back to us, for you can do it ; but you can never pay us 
 for what we suffered. Give us, sir, our farm, our green fields, 
 our house, and every spot and nook that we had before. We 
 love the place, sir, for its own sake; it is the place of our 
 fathers, and our hearts are in it. I often think I see the smooth 
 river that runs through it, and the meadows that I played in 
 when I was a child the glen behind our house, the mountains 
 that rose before us when we left the door, the thorn-bush at the 
 garden, the hazels in the glen, the little bleach-green beside the 
 river oh, sir, don't blame me for crying, for they are all before 
 my eyes, in my ears, and in my heart ! Many a summer even- 
 ing have I gone to the march-ditch of the farm that my father's 
 now in, and looked at the place I loved till the tears blinded 
 me, and I asked it as a favour of God to restore us to it 1 Sir, 
 we are in great poverty at home ; before God we are ; and my 
 father's heart is breaking ! " 
 
 The colonel drew his breath deeply, rubbed his hands, and 
 as he looked at the fine countenance of the boy expressing, as 
 it did, enthusiasm and sorrow his eyes lightened with a gleam
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 79 
 
 of indignation. It could not be against the poor scholar; no, 
 gentle reader, but against his own agent. 
 
 " O'Brien," said he, " what do you think ? And this noble 
 boy is the son of a man who belongs to a class of which I am 
 ignorant 1 By heaven, we landlords are, I fear, a guilty race." 
 
 "Not all, sir," replied the curate. "There are noble excep- 
 tions among them ; their faults are more the faults of omission 
 than commission." 
 
 " Well, well, no matter. Come, I will draw up the informa- 
 tions against this man ; afterwards I have something to say to 
 you, my boy," he added, addressing Jemmy, "that will not, 
 I trust, be unpleasant." 
 
 He then drew up the informations as strongly as he could 
 word them, after which Jemmy deposed to their truth and 
 accuracy, and the colonel, rubbing his hands again, said 
 
 " I will have the fellow secured. When you go into town, 
 Mr. O'Brien, I'll thank you to call on Meares, and hand him 
 these. He will lodge the miscreant in limbo this very night." 
 
 Jemmy then thanked him, and was about to withdraw, when 
 the colonel desired him to remain a little longer. 
 
 " Now," said he, " your father has been treated inhumanly, I 
 believe; but no matter. That is not the question. Your senti- 
 ments, and conduct, and your affection for your parents are 
 noble, my boy. At present, I say, the question is not whether 
 the history of your father's wrongs be true or false; you at least 
 believe it to be true. From this forward but by-the-bye, I 
 forgot ; how could your becoming a poor scholar relieve your 
 parents?" 
 
 " I intended to become a priest, sir, and then to help them." 
 
 " Ay ! so I thought ; and provided your father were restored 
 to his farm, would you be still disposed to become a priest ? w 
 
 " I would, sir ; next to helping my father, that is what I wish 
 to be." 
 
 " O'Brien, what would it cost to prepare him respectably for 
 the priesthood? I mean, to defray his expenses until he com- 
 p'etes his preparatory education, in the first place, and after- 
 wards during his residence in Maynooth?" 
 
 " I think two hundred pounds, sir, would do it easily and 
 respectably." 
 
 " I do not think it would. However, do you send him but 
 first let me ask what progress he has already made?" 
 
 " He has read in fact he is nearly prepared to enter 
 Maynooth. His progress has been very rapid." 
 
 " Put him to some respectable boarding-school for a year ;
 
 8o THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 then let him enter Maynooth, and I will bear the expense. But 
 remember I do not adopt this course in consequence of his 
 father's history. Not I, by Jupiter ; I do it on his own account. 
 He is a noble boy, and full of fine qualities, if they be not 
 nipped by neglect and poverty. I loved my father myself, and 
 fought a duel on his account; and I honour the son who has 
 spirit to defend his absent parent." 
 
 "This is a most surprising turn in the boy's fortunes, 
 colonel." 
 
 " He deserves it. A soldier, Mr. O'Brien, is not without his 
 enthusiasm, nor can he help admiring it in others, when nobly 
 and virtuously directed. To see a boy in the midst of poverty 
 encountering the hardships and difficulties of life, with the hope 
 of raising up his parents from distress to independence, has a 
 touch of sublimity in it." 
 
 " Ireland, colonel, abounds with instances of similar virtue, 
 brought out, probably, into fuller life and vigour by the sad 
 changes and depressions which are weighing down the people. 
 In her glens, on her bleak mountain sides, and in her remotest 
 plains, such examples of pure affection, uncommon energy, and 
 humble heroism are to be seen ; but, unfortunately, few persons 
 o* rank or observation mingle with the Irish people, and their 
 many admirable qualities pass away without being recorded in 
 the literature of their country. They are certainly a strange 
 people, colonel, almost an anomaly in the history of the human 
 race. They are the only people who can rush out from the very 
 virtues of private life to the perpetration of crimes at which we 
 shudder. There is, to be sure, an outcry about their oppres- 
 sion; but that is wrong. Their indigence and ignorance are 
 rather the result of neglect of neglect, sir, from the govern- 
 ment of the country from the earl to the squireen. They have 
 been taught little that is suitable to their stations and duties in 
 life, either as tenants who cultivate our lands, or as members of 
 moral or Christian society." 
 
 " Well, well ; I believe what you say is too true. But touch- 
 ing the records of virtue in humble life, pray who would record 
 it when nothing goes down nowadays but what is either 
 monstrous or fashionable ?" 
 
 "Very true, colonel; yet, in my humble opinion, a virtuous 
 Irish peasant is far from being so low a character as a profligate 
 man of rank." 
 
 " Well, well, well I Come, O'Brien, we will drop the subject. 
 In the meantime, touching this boy, as I said, he must be 
 looked to, for he has that in him which ought not to be
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 81 
 
 neglected. We shall now see that this d d pedagogue 
 
 be punished for his cruelty." 
 
 The worthy colonel in a short time dismissed poor Jemmy 
 with an exulting heart ; but not until he had placed a sufficient 
 sum in the curate's hands for enabling him to make a respect- 
 able appearance. Medical advice was also procured for him, 
 by which he soon overcame the effects of his master's 
 brutality. 
 
 On their way home Jemmy related to his friend the con- 
 versation which he had had with his bishop in the shed, and the 
 kind interest which that gentleman had taken in his situation 
 and prospects. Mr. O'Brien told him that the bishop was an 
 excellent man, possessing much discrimination and benevolence ; 
 "and so," said he, "is the Protestant clergyman who accom- 
 panied him. They have both gone among the people during 
 this heavy visitation of disease and famine administering 
 advice and assistance ; restraining them from those excesses 
 which they sometimes commit when, driven by hunger, they 
 attack provision carts, bakers' shops, or the houses of farmers 
 who are known to possess a stock of meal or potatoes. God 
 knows, it is an excusable kind of robbery j yet it is right to 
 restrain them." 
 
 " It is a pleasant thing, sir, to see clergymen of every religion 
 working together to make the people happy." 
 
 " It is certainly so," replied the curate ; "and I am bound to 
 say, in justice to the Protestant clergy, that there is no class 
 of men in Ireland, James, who do so much good without 
 distinction of creed or party. They are generally kind and 
 charitable to the poor ; so are their wives and daughters. I 
 have often known them to cheer the sick-bed to assist the 
 widow and the orphan to advise and admonish the profligate, 
 and, in some instances, even to reclaim them. But now about 
 your own prospects ; I think you should go and see your 
 family as soon as your health permits you." 
 
 " I would give my right hand," replied Jemmy, "just to 
 see them, if it was only for five minutes ; but I cannot go. 
 I vowed that I would never enter my native parish until I 
 should become a Catholic clergyman. I vowed that, sir, to 
 God and with his assistance I will keep my vow." 
 
 " Well," said the curate, " you are right. And now let me 
 give you a little advice. In the first place, learn to speak as 
 correctly as you can ; lay aside the vulgarisms of conversation 
 peculiar to the common people, and speak precisely as you 
 would write. By-the-bye, you acquitted yourself to admiration
 
 82 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 with the colonel. A little stumbling there was in the begin- 
 ning; but you got over it. You see, James, the force of truth 
 and simplicity. I could scarcely restrain my tears while you 
 spoke." 
 
 " If I had not been in earnest, sir, I could never have spoken 
 as I did." 
 
 " You never could. Truth, James, is the foundation of all 
 eloquence ; he who knowingly speaks what is not true may 
 dazzle and perplex ; but he will never touch with that power 
 and pathos which spring from truth. Fiction is successful 
 only by borrowing her habiliments. Now, James, for a little 
 more advice. Don't let the idea of having been a poor scholar 
 deprive you of self-respect ; neither let your unexpected turn 
 of fortune cause you to forget what you have suffered. Hold a 
 middle course ; be firm and independent ; without servility on 
 the one hand, or vanity on the other. You have also too much 
 good sense, and, I hope, too much religion, to ascribe what this 
 day has brought forth in your behalf to any other cause than 
 God. It has pleased him to raise you from misery to ease and 
 comfort ; to him, therefore, be it referred, and to him be your 
 thanks and prayers directed. You owe him much, for you now 
 can perceive the value of wliat he has done for you ! May his 
 name be blessed ! " 
 
 Jemmy was deeply affected by the kindness of his friend, for 
 such, in friendship's truest sense, was he to him. He expressed 
 the obligations which he owed him, and promised to follow 
 the excellent advice he had just received. 
 
 The schoolmaster's conduct to the poor scholar had, before 
 the close of the day on which it occurred, been known through 
 the parish. Thady O'Rorke, who had just recovered from the 
 epidemic, felt so bitterly exasperated at the outrage that he 
 brought his father to the parish priest, to whom he gave a 
 detailed account of all that our hero and the poorer children 
 of the school had suffered. In addition to this, he went among 
 the more substantial farmers of the neighbourhood, whose 
 co-operation he succeeded in obtaining for the laudable pur- 
 pose of driving the tyrant out of the parish. 
 
 Jemmy, who still lived at the " House of Entertainment," on 
 hearing what they intended to do, begged Mr. O'Brien to allow 
 him, provided the master should be removed from the schorl, 
 to decline prosecuting him. 
 
 " He has been cruel to me, no doubt," he added ; " still I 
 cannot forget that his cruelty has been the means of changing 
 my condition in life so much for the better. If he is put out of
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 83 
 
 the parish it will be punishment enough ; and, to say the truth, 
 sir, I can now forgive everybody. Maybe had I been still 
 neglected I might punish him ; but in the meantime, to show him 
 and the world that I didn't deserve his severity, I forgive h.m." 
 
 Mr. O'Brien was not disposed to check a sentiment that did 
 the boy's heart so much honour; he waited on the colonel the 
 next morning, acquainted him with Jemmy's wishes, and the 
 indictment was quashed immediately after the schoolmaster's 
 removal from his situation. 
 
 Our hero's personal appearance was by this time incredibly 
 changed for the better. His countenance, naturally expressive 
 of feeling, firmness, and intellect, now appeared to additional 
 advantage ; so did his whole person, when dressed in a decent 
 suit of black. No man acquainted with life can be ignorant of 
 the improvement which genteel apparel produces in the carriage, 
 tone of thought, and principles of an individual. It gives a 
 man confidence, self-respect, and a sense of equality with his 
 companions ; it inspires him with energy, independence, 
 delicacy of sentiment, courtesy of manner, and elevation of 
 language. The face becomes manly, bold, and free ; the brow 
 open, and the eye clear ; there is no slinking through narrow 
 lanes and back streets, but, on the contrary, the smoothly- 
 dressed man steps out with a determination not to spare the 
 earth, or to walk as if he trod on eggs or razors. No; he 
 brushes onward ; is the first to accost his friends ; gives a care- 
 less bow to this, a bluff nod to that, and a patronising " how- 
 d'ye-do" to a third, who is worse dressed than himself. Trust 
 me, kind reader, that good clothes are calculated to advance a 
 man in life nearly as well as good principles, especially in a 
 world like this, where external appearance is taken as the 
 exponent of what is beneath it. 
 
 Jemmy, by the advice of his friend, now waited upon the 
 bishop, who was much surprised at the uncommon turn of 
 fortune which had taken place in his favour. He also expressed 
 his willingness to help him forward, as far as lay in his power, 
 towards the attainment of his wishes. In order to place the 
 boy directly under suitable patronage, Mr. O'Brien suggested 
 that the choice of the school should be left to the bishop. This 
 perhaps flattered him a little, for who is without his weak- 
 nesses? A school near the metropolis was accordingly fixed 
 upon, to which Jemmy, now furnished with a handsome outfit, 
 was accordingly sent. There we will leave him, reading with 
 eagerness and assiduity, whilst we return to look after Colonel 
 B. and his agent.
 
 84 THE, POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 One morning after James's departure the colonel's servant 
 waited upon Mr. O'Brien with a note from his master, intimating 
 a wish to see him. He lost no time in waiting upon that gentle- 
 man, who was then preparing to visit the estate which he had 
 so long neglected. 
 
 " I am going," said he, " to see how my agent, Yellow Sam, 
 as they call him, and my tenants agree. It is my determination, 
 Mr. O'Brien, to investigate the circumstances attending the 
 removal of our protigt 's father. I shall, moreover, louk closely 
 into the state and feelings of my tenants in general. It is 
 probable I shall visit many of them, and certain that I will 
 inquire into the character of this man." 
 
 " It is better late than never, colonel ; but still, though I am 
 a friend to the people, yet I would recommend you to be guided 
 by great caution, and the evidence of respectable and dis- 
 interested men only. You must not certainly entertain all the 
 complaints you may hear without clear proof, for I regret to say 
 that too many of the idle and political portion of the peasantry 
 are apt to throw the blame of their own folly and ignorance 
 yes, and of their crimes also upon those who in no way have 
 occasioned either their poverty or their wickedness. They are 
 frequently apt to consider themselves oppressed, if concessions 
 are not made to which they, as idle and indolent men, who 
 neglect their own business, have no fair claim. Bear this in 
 mind, colonel be cool, use discrimination, take your proofs 
 from others besides the parties concerned, or their friends, and, 
 depend upon it, you will arrive at the truth." 
 
 " O'Brien, you would make an excellent agent" 
 
 " I have studied the people, sir, and know them. I have 
 breathed the atmosphere of their prejudices, habits, manners, 
 customs, and superstitions. I have felt them all myself, as they 
 feel them ; but I trust I have got above their influence where it 
 is evil, for there are many fine touches of character among them 
 which I should not willingly part with. No, sir; I should make 
 a bad agent, having no capacity for transacting business. I 
 could direct and overlook, but nothing more." 
 
 " Well, then, I shall set out to-morrow ; and in the meantime 
 permit me to say that I am deeply sensible of your kindness in 
 pointing out my duty as an Irish landlord, conscious that I have 
 too long neglected it." 
 
 " Kindness, colonel, is the way to the Irish heart. There is 
 but one man in Ireland who can make an Irishman ungrateful, 
 and that is his priest. I regret that in times of political 
 excitement, and especially during electioneering struggles, the
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 85 
 
 interference of the clergy produces disastrous effects upon the 
 moral feelings of the people. When a tenant meets the landlord 
 whom he has deserted in the critical moment of the contest 
 the landlord to whom he has solemnly promised his support, 
 and who perhaps, as a member of the legislature, has advocated 
 his claims and his rights, and who probably has been kind and 
 indulgent to him I say, when he meets him afterwards, his 
 shufflings, excuses, and evasions are grievous. He is driven 
 to falsehood and dissimulation in explaining his conduct ; he 
 expresses his repentance, curses himself for his ingratitude, 
 promises well for the future, but seldom or never can be 
 prevailed upon to state candidly that he acted in obedience to 
 the priest. In some instances, however, he admits this, and 
 inveighs bitterly against his interference but this is only 
 whilst in the presence of his landlord. I think, colonel, that no 
 clergyman, set apart as he is for the concerns of a better world, 
 should become a firebrand in the secular pursuits and turmoils 
 of this." 
 
 " I wish, Mr. O'Brien, that every clergyman of your Church 
 resembled you, and acted up to your sentiments ; our common 
 country would be the better for it." 
 
 " I endeavour to act, sir, as a man who has purely spiritual 
 duties to perform. It is not for us to be agitated and inflamed 
 by the political passions and animosities of the world. Our lot 
 is differently cast, and we ought to abide by it. The priest and 
 politician can no more agree than good and eviL I speak with 
 respect to all Churches." 
 
 " And so do I." 
 
 " What stay do you intend to make, colonel ? " 
 
 " I think about a month. I shall visit some of my old friends 
 there, from whom I expect a history of the state and feelings of 
 the country." 
 
 " You will hear both sides of the question before you act ? " 
 
 " Certainly. I have written to my agent to say that I shall 
 look very closely into my own affairs on this occasion. I thought 
 it fair to give him notice." 
 
 " Well, sir, I wish you all success." 
 
 " Farewell, Mr. O'Brien ; I shall see you immediately after my 
 return." 
 
 The colonel performed his journey by slow stages until he 
 reached "the hall of his fathers" for it was such, although he 
 had not for years resided in it It presented the wreck of a fine 
 old mansion, situated within a crescent of stately beeches, whose 
 moss-covered and ragged trunks gave symptoms of decay and
 
 86 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 neglect. The lawn had been once beautiful, and the demesne 
 a noble one ; hut that which blights the industry of the tenant 
 the curse of absenteeism had also left the marks of ruin stamped 
 upon every object around him. The lawn was little better than 
 a common ; the pond was thick with weeds and sluggish water- 
 plants, that almost covered its surface ; and a light, elegant 
 bridge, that spanned a river which ran before the house, was also 
 moss-grown and dilapidated. The hedges were mixed up with 
 briers, the gates broken or altogether removed, the fields were 
 rank with the ruinous luxuriance of weeds, and the grass-grown 
 avenues spoke of solitude and desertion. The still appearance, 
 too, of the house itself, and the absence of smoke from its time- 
 tinged chimneys all told a tale which constitutes one, perhaps 
 the greatest, portion of Ireland's misery ! Even then he did not 
 approach it with the intention of residing there during his sojourn 
 in the country. It was not habitable, nor had it been so for years. 
 The road by which he travelled lay near it, and he could not pass 
 without looking upon the place where a long line of gallant 
 ancestors had succeeded each other, lived their span, and dis- 
 appeared in their turn. 
 
 He contemplated it for some time in a kind of reverie. There 
 it stood, sombre and silent ; its grey walls mouldering away ; its 
 windows dark and broken ; like a man forsaken by the world, 
 compelled to bear the storms of life without the hand of a 
 friend to support him, though age and decay render him less 
 capable of enduring them. For a moment fancy re-peopled it : 
 again the stir of life, pastime, mirth, and hospitality echoed 
 within its walls ; the train of his long-departed relatives re- 
 turned ; the din of rude and boisterous enjoyment peculiar to 
 the times ; the cheerful tumult of the hall at dinner ; the family 
 feuds and festivities ; the vanities and the passions of those 
 who now slept in dust ; all all came before him once more, 
 and played their part in the vision of the moment ! 
 
 As he walked on, the flitting wing of a bat struck him lightly 
 in its flight. He awoke from the remembrances which crowded 
 on him, and, resuming his journey, soon arrived at the inn of 
 the nearest town, where he stopped that night The next 
 morning he saw his agent for a short time, but declined enter- 
 ing on business. For a few days more he visited most of the 
 neighbouring gentry, from whom he received sufficient informa- 
 tion to satisfy him that neither himself nor his agent was 
 popular among his tenantry. Many flying reports of the agent's 
 dishonesty and tyranny were mentioned to him, and in every 
 instance he took down the names of the parties, in order to
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 87 
 
 ascertain the truth. M'Evoy's case had occurred more than 
 ten years before, but he found that the remembrance of the 
 poor man's injury was strongly and bitterly retained in the 
 recollections of the people a circumstance which extorted 
 from the blunt but somewhat sentimental soldier a just observa- 
 tion. "I think," said he, "that there are no people in the 
 world who remember an injury or a kindness so long as the 
 Irish." 
 
 When the tenants were apprised of his presence among 
 them, they experienced no particular feeling upon the subject. 
 During all his former visits to his estate he appeared merely 
 the creature and puppet of his agent, who never acted the bully, 
 nor tricked himself out in his brief authority more imperiously 
 than he did before him. The knowledge of this damped them, 
 and rendered any expectations of redress or justice from the 
 landlord a matter not to be thought of. 
 
 " If he wasn't so great a man,'' they observed, " who thinks it 
 below him to speak to his tenants, or hear their complaints, 
 there ud be some hope ; but that rip of hell, Yallow Sam, can 
 wind him round his finger like a thread, an' does too. There's 
 no use in thinkin' to petition him, or to lodge a complaint 
 against Stony Heart ; for the first thing he'd do ud be to put it 
 into yallow boy's hands, an' thin, God be merciful to thim that 
 ud complain. No, no ; the best way is to wait till Sam's 
 masther 1 takes him ; an' who knows but that ud be sooner nor 
 we think." 
 
 " They say," another would reply, " that the colonel is a good 
 gintleman for all that, an' that if he could once know the truth, 
 he'd pitch the ' yallow boy ' to the ' ould boy. ' " 
 
 No sooner was it known by his tenantry that the head land- 
 lord was disposed to redress their grievances and hear their 
 complaints, than the smothered attachment, which long neglect 
 had nearly extinguished, now burst forth with uncommon 
 power. 
 
 "Aughl by this an' by that, the thrue blood's in him still. The 
 rale gintleman to dale wid for ever ! We knew he only wanted 
 to come at the thruth, an' thin he'd back us agin the villain that 
 harrished us ! To the divil wid skamin' upstarts, that hasn't 
 the ould blood in thim ! What are they but sconces an' chates, 
 every one o' thim, barrin' an odd one, for a wondher?" 
 
 The colonel's estate now presented a scene of gladness and 
 bustle. Every person who felt in the slightest degree aggrieved 
 
 1 The devil a familiar name for him when mentioned in connection 
 with a villain.
 
 88 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 got his petition drawn up ; and, but that we fear our sketch is 
 already too long, we would gratify the reader's curiosity by 
 submitting a few of them. It is sufficient to say that they came 
 to him in every shape in all the variety of diction that the poor 
 English language admits of in the schoolmaster's best copy- 
 hand, and choicest sesquipedalianism of pedantry in the severer 
 but more scriptural terms of the parish clerk in the engrossing 
 hand and legal phrase of the attorney's in the military form, 
 evidently redolent of the shrewd old pensioner and in the 
 classical style of the young priest ; for each and all- of the fore- 
 going were enlisted in the cause of those who had petitions to 
 send in "to the colonel himself, God bless him !" 
 
 Early in the morning of the day on which the colonel had 
 resolved to compare the complaints of his tenantry with the 
 character which his agent gave him of the complaints, he sent 
 for the former, and the following dialogue took place between 
 them. 
 
 " Good morning, Mr. Carson. Excuse me for requesting 
 your presence to-day earlier than usual. I have taken it into 
 my head to know something of my own tenantry, and as they 
 have pestered me with petitions and letters and complaints, I 
 am anxious to have your opinion, as you know them better than 
 I do. :> 
 
 " Before we enter on business, colonel, allow me to inquire if 
 you feel relieved of that bilious attack you complained of the 
 day before yesterday ? I'm of a bilious habit myself, and know 
 something about the management of digestion." 
 
 " A good digestion is an excellent thing, Carson. As for me, 
 
 I drank too much claret with my friend B y ; and there's 
 
 the secret. I don't like cold wines ; they never agree with me. 1 ' 
 
 " Nor do I ; they are not constitutional. Your father was 
 celebrated for his wines, colonel. I remember an anecdote told 
 me by Captain Ferguson by-the-bye, do you know where 
 Ferguson could be found now, sir ? '' 
 
 " Not I. What wines do you drink, Carson ?'' 
 
 " A couple of glasses of sherry, sir, at dinner ; and about ten 
 o'clock, a glass of brandy and water." 
 
 " Carson, you are sober and prudent. Well, about these 
 cursed petitions ; you must help me to dispose of them. Why, 
 a man would think, by the tenor of them, that these tenants of 
 mine are ground to dust by a tyrant.' 1 
 
 " Ah, colonel, you know little about these fellows. They 
 would make black white. Go and take a ride, sir, return about 
 four o'clock, and I will have everything as it ought to be."
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 89 
 
 " I wish to heaven, Carson, I had your talents for business. 
 Do you think my tenants attached to me ?" 
 
 " Attached, sir ! they are ready to cut your throat or mine on 
 the first convenient opportunity. You could not conceive their 
 k-.iavishness and dishonesty, except you happened to be an 
 agent for a few years." 
 
 " So I have been told, and I am resolved to remove every 
 dishonest tenant from my estate. Is there not a man, for 
 instance, called Brady ? He has sent me a long-winded 
 petition here. What do you think of him ?'" 
 
 " Show me the petition, colonel." 
 
 " I cannot lay my hand on it just now ; but you shall see it. 
 In the meantime, what's your opinion of the fellow ?'' 
 
 " Brady ! Why, I know the man particularly well. He is 
 one of my favourites. What the deuce could the fellow petition 
 about, though? I promised the other day to renew his lease for 
 him." 
 
 " Oh, then, if he be a favourite ot yours, his petition may go 
 to the devil, I suppose ? Is the man honest ?" 
 
 " Remarkably so ; and has paid his rents very punctually. 
 He is one of our safest tenants." 
 
 " Do you know a man called Cullen ? 
 
 " The most litigious scoundrel on the estate." 
 
 " Indeed ! Oh, then, we must look into the merits of his 
 petition, as he is not honest. Had he been honest like Brady, 
 Carson, I should have dismissed it." 
 
 " Cullen, sir, is a dangerous fellow. Do you know, that 
 rascal has charged me with keeping back his receipts, and with 
 making him pay double rent ! ha, ha, ha ! Upon my honour, 
 it's a fact." 
 
 " The scoundrel ! We shall sift him to some purpose, 
 however." 
 
 " If you take my advice, sir, you will send him about his 
 business ; for if it be once known that you listen to malicious 
 petitions, my authority over such villains as Cullen is lost." 
 
 " Well, I set him aside for the present. Here's a long list of 
 others, all of whom have been oppressed, forsooth. Is there 
 a man called M'Evoy on my estate ? Dominick M'Evoy, I 
 think." 
 
 " M'Evoy ! Why, that rascal, sir, has not been your tenant 
 for ten years 1 His petition, colonel, is a key to the nature of 
 their grievances in general." 
 
 " I believe you, Carson most implicitly do I believe that. 
 Well, about this rascal ?"
 
 90 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 " Why, it is so long since that, upon my honour, I cannot 
 exactly remember the circumstances of his misconduct. He 
 ran away." 
 
 "Who is in his farm now, Carson ?" 
 
 "A very decent man, sir. One Jackson, an exceedingly 
 worthy, honest, industrious fellow. I take some credit to myself 
 for bringing Jackson on your estate." 
 
 " Is Jackson married ? Has he a family ?" 
 
 " Married ! Let me see ! Why yes I believe he is. Oh, 
 by-the-bye, now I think of it, he is married, and to a very 
 respectable woman, too. Certainly, I remember she usually 
 accompanies him when he pays his rents." 
 
 "Then your system must be a good one, Carson ; you weed 
 out the idle and profligate, to replace them by the honest and 
 industrious ? " 
 
 " Precisely so, sir ; that is my system." 
 
 " Yet there are agents who invert your system in some cases; 
 who drive out the honest and industrious, and encourage the 
 idle and profligate ; who connive at them, Carson, and fill the 
 estates they manage with their own dependents or relatives, as 
 the case may be. You have been always opposed to this, and 
 I'm glad to hear it." 
 
 " No man, Colonel B , filling the situation which I have 
 
 the honour to hold under you, could study your interests with 
 greater zeal and assiduity. God knows, I have had so many 
 quarrels, and feuds, and wranglings with these fellows, in order 
 to squeeze money out of them to meet your difficulties, that, 
 upon my honour, I think if it required five dozen oaths to hang 
 me, they could be procured upon your estate. An agent, 
 colonel, who is faithful to the landlord is seldom popular with 
 the tenants." 
 
 " I can't exactly see that, Carson ; and I have known an 
 unpopular landlord rendered highly popular by the judicious 
 management of an enlightened and honest agent, who took no 
 bribes, Carson, and who neither extorted from nor ground the 
 tenantry under him something like a counterpart of yourself. 
 But you may be right in general." 
 
 " Is there anything particular, colonel, in which I can assist 
 you now ? " 
 
 " Not now. I was anxious to hear the character of those 
 fellows from you, who know them. Come down about eleven 
 or twelve o'clock; these petitioners will be assembled, and you 
 may be able to assist me." 
 
 " Colonel, remember I forewarn you that you are plunging
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 91 
 
 into a mesh of difficulties which you will never be able to dis- 
 entangle. Leave the fellows to me, sir; I know how to deal 
 with them. Besides, upon my honour, you are not equal to it 
 in point of health. You look ill. Pray allow me to take home 
 their papers, and I shall have all clear and satisfactory before 
 two o'clock. They know my method, sir." 
 
 " They do, Carson, they do; but I am anxious they should 
 also know mine. Besides, it will amuse me, for I want excite- 
 ment. Good day, for the present; you will be down about 
 twelve, or one at the furthest." 
 
 " Certainly, sir. Good morning, colonel." 
 
 The agent was too shrewd a man not to perceive that there 
 were touches of cutting irony in some of the colonel's 
 expressions, which he did not like. There was a dryness, too, 
 in the tone of his voice and words, blended with a copiousness 
 of good humour, which, taken altogether, caused him to feel 
 uncomfortable. He could have wished the colonel at the devil; 
 yet had the said colonel never been more familiar in his life, 
 nor, with o:^.e or two exceptions, readier to agree with almost 
 every observation made to him. 
 
 "Well," thought he, "he may act as he pleases; /have 
 feathered my nest, at all events, and disregard him." 
 
 Colonel B , in fact, ascertained, with extreme regret, that 
 
 something was necessary to be done to secure the good-will of 
 his tenants ; that the conduct of his agent had been marked by 
 rapacity and bribery almost incredible. He had exacted from 
 the tenantry in general the performance of duty-labour to such 
 an extent that his immense agricultural farms were managed 
 with little expense to himself. If a poor man's corn were drop 
 ripe, or his hay in a precarious state, or his turf undrawn, he 
 must suffer his oats, hay, and turf to be lost, in order to secure 
 the crops of the agent If he had spirit to refuse, he must 
 expect to become a martyr to his resentment. In renewing 
 leases his extortions were exorbitant : ten, thirty, forty, and 
 fifty guineas he claimed as a fee for his favour, according to the 
 ability of the party ; yet this was quite distinct from the renewal 
 fine, and went into his own pocket. When such "glove 
 money " was not to be had, he would accept a cow or horse, 
 to which he usually made a point to take a fancy; or he wanted 
 to purchase a firkin of butter at that particular time, and the 
 poor people usually made every sacrifice to avoid his vengeance. 
 It is due to Colonel B to say that he acted in the inves- 
 tigation of his agent's conduct with the strictest honour 
 and impartiality. He scrutinised every statement thoroughly.
 
 92 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 pleaded for him as temperately as he could ; found, or pre- 
 tended to find, extenuating motives for his most indefensible 
 proceedings ; but all would not do. The cases were so clear 
 and evident against him, even in the opinion of the neighbour- 
 ing gentry, who had been for years looking upon the system of 
 selfish misrule which he practised, that at length the generous 
 colonel's blood boiled with indignation in his veins at the 
 contemplation of his villainy. He accused himself bitterly for 
 neglecting his duties as a landlord, and felt both remorse and 
 shame for having wasted his time, health, and money in the 
 fashionable dissipation of London and Paris whilst a cunning, 
 unprincipled upstart played the vampire with his tenants, and 
 turned his estate into a scene of oppression and poverty. Nor 
 was this all : he had been endeavouring to bring the property 
 more and more into his own clutches a point which he would 
 ultimately have gained had not the colonel's late succession 
 to so large a fortune enabled him to meet his claims. 
 
 At one o'clock the tenants were all assembled about the inn 
 door, where the colonel had resolved to hold his little court. 
 The agent himself soon arrived, as did several other gentlemen, 
 the colonel's friends, who knew the people, and could speak to 
 their character. 
 
 The first man called was Dominick M'Evoy. No sooner 
 was his name uttered than a mild, poor-looking man, rather 
 advanced in years, came forward. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, colonel," said Carson, "here is some 
 mistake; this man is not one of your tenants. You may 
 remember I told you so this morning." 
 
 "I remember it," replied the colonel; "this is 'the rascal' 
 you spoke of is he not ? M'Evoy," the colonel proceeded, 
 " you will reply to my questions with strict truth. You will 
 state nothing but what has occurred between you and my 
 agent; you must not even turn a circumstance in your own 
 favour, nor against Mr. Carson, by either adding to or taking 
 away from it more or less than the truth. I say this to you 
 and to all present; for, upon my honour, I shall dismiss the 
 first case in which I discover a falsehood." 
 
 " Wid the help o' the 'Almighty, sir, I'll state nothing but the 
 bare thruth." 
 
 " How long are you off my estate ? " 
 
 " Ten years, your honour, or a little more." 
 
 " How came you to run away out of your farm ? " 
 
 " Run away, your honour? God he knows I didn't run away, 
 sir. The whole counthry knows that."
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 93 
 
 " Yes, run away 1 Mr. Carson here stated to me this morn- 
 ing that you ran away. He is a gentleman of integrity, and 
 would not state a falsehood." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, colonel, not positively. I told you I did 
 not exactly remember the circumstances ; 1 said I thought so ; 
 but I may be wrong, for indeed my memory of facts is not 
 good. M'Evoy, however, is a very honest man, and I have no 
 doubt will state everything as it happened, fairly and without 
 malice." 
 
 "An honest ' rascal] I suppose you mean, Mr. Carson," said 
 the colonel bitterly. " Proceed, M'Evoy." 
 
 M'Evoy stated the circumstances precisely as the reader is 
 already acquainted with them, after which the colonel turned 
 round to his agent and asked what he had to say in reply. 
 
 " You cannot expect, Colonel B ," he replied, " that with 
 
 such a multiplicity of business on my hands I could remember, 
 after a lapse of ten years, the precise state of this particular 
 case. Perhaps I may have some papers, a memorandum or so, 
 at home, that may throw light upon it. At present I can only 
 say that the man failed in his rents, 1 ejected him, and put a 
 better tenant in his place. I cannot see a crime in that." 
 
 " Plase your honour," replied M'Evoy, " I can prove by them 
 that's standin' to the fore this minute, as well as by this written 
 affidavit, sir, that I offered him the full rint, havin', at the same 
 time, as God is my judge, ped part of it afore." 
 
 " That is certainly false an untrue and malicious statement," 
 said Carson. " I now remember that the cause of my resent- 
 ment yes, of my just resentment against you was your 
 reporting that I received your rent and withheld your receipt." 
 
 " Then," observed the colonel, " there has been more than one 
 charge of that nature brought against you? You mentioned 
 another to me this morning, if I mistake not." 
 
 " I have made my oath, your honour, of the thruth of it ; an" 
 here is a dacent man, sir, a Protestant, that lent me the money, 
 an' was present when I offered it to him. Mr. Smith, come 
 forrid, sir, an' spake up for the poor man, as you're always 
 willin' to do." 
 
 " I object to his evidence," said CSrson ; " he is my open 
 enemy." 
 
 " I am your enemy, Mr. Carson, or rather the enemy of 
 your corruption and want of honesty," said Smith; "but, as 
 you say, an open one. I scorn to say behind your back what I 
 wouldn't say to your face. Right well you know I was present 
 when he tendered you his rent. I lent him part of it. But 
 
 8
 
 94 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 why did you and your bailiffs turn him out when his wife was on 
 her sick bed ? Allowing that he could not pay his rent, was 
 that any reason you should do so barbarous an act as to drag 
 a woman from her sick bed, and she at the point of death ? 
 But we know your reasons for it." 
 
 "Gentlemen," said the colonel, "pray what character do 
 M'Evoy and Smith here bear in the country ?" 
 
 " We have known them both for years to be honest, conscien- 
 tious men," said those whom he addressed ; " such is their 
 character, and in our opinion they well deserve it." 
 
 " God bless you, gintlemen ! " said M'Evoy " God bless your 
 honours for your kind words ! I'm sure, for my own part, I 
 hope I'll always desarve your good opinion, although but a 
 poor man now, God help me! " 
 
 " Pray, who occupies the farm at present, Mr. Carson ? " 
 
 "The man I mentioned to you this morning, sir? His name 
 is Jackson?" 
 
 " And pray, Mr. Carson, who is his wife ?" 
 
 " Oh, by-the-bye, colonel, that's a little too close. I see the 
 gentlemen smile ; but they know I must beg to decline 
 answering that question not that it matters much. We have 
 all sown our wild oats in our time myself as well as another 
 ha, ha, ha ! " 
 
 "The fact, under other circumstances," observed the colonel, 
 " could never draw an inquiry from me ; but as it is connected 
 with, or probably has occasioned, a gross, unfeeling, and an 
 unjust act of oppression towards an honest man, I therefore 
 alluded to it as exhibiting the motives from which you acted. 
 She is your illegitimate daughter, sir?" 
 
 " She's one o' the baker's dozen o' them, plase your honour," 
 observed a humorous little Presbyterian, with a sarcastic face 
 and sharp northern accent " for feth, sir, for my part, A thenk 
 he hes one on every billhead. A'll count, your honour, on my 
 fingers, a roun' half-dozen, aall on your estate, sir, featherin' 
 their nests as fast as they can." 
 
 " Is this Jackson a good tenant, Mr. Carson ?" 
 
 " I gave you his character this morning, Colonel B ." 
 
 " Hout, colonel," said* the Presbyterian, "deil a penny rent 
 the man pays, at aal at aal. A'll swear A hev it from Jackson's 
 own lips. He made him a bailey, sir ; he suts rent free. Ask 
 the man, sir, for his receipts, an' A'll warrant the truth will 
 come out." 
 
 " I have secured Jackson's attendance," said the colonel ; 
 " let him be called in."
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 95 
 
 The man in a few minutes entered. 
 
 " Jackson," said the colonel, " how long is it since you paid 
 Mr. Carson here any rent?" 
 
 Jackson looked at Carson for his cue ; but the colonel rose 
 up indignantly. " Fellow ! " he proceeded, " if you tamper with 
 me a single moment you shall find Mr. Carson badly able to 
 protect you. If you speak falsehood, be it at your peril." 
 
 " By jing, sir," said Jackson, " A'll say nothin' aginst my 
 father-in-laa, an' A don't care who teks it well or ull. A was 
 
 jist tekin' a gun 1 with a fren' or two an' d me, A say, A'll 
 
 stick to my father-in-laa, for he hes stuck to me." 
 
 " You appear to be a hardened, drunken wretch," observed 
 the colonel. " Will you be civil enough to show your last 
 receipt for rent ? " 
 
 "Wull A show it? A dono whether A wull or not, nor A 
 dono whether A hev it or not ; but ef aal the receipts in 
 Europe wur burnt, d my blood but A'll stick to my father- 
 in-laa." 
 
 " Your father-in-law may be proud of you," said the colonel. 
 
 " By h , A'll back you en that," siid the fellow, nodding 
 
 his head, and looking round him confidently. " By h , A 
 
 say that too ! " 
 
 " And I'm sorry to be compelled to add," continued the 
 colonel, " that you may be equally proud of your father- 
 in-law." 
 
 " A say right agane ! D me, bit A'll back that too ! " and 
 
 he nodded confidently, and looked around the room once more. 
 
 " A wull ; d my blood, bit no man can say agane it. A'm 
 
 married to his daughther ; an', by the sun that shines, A'll still 
 stan' up for my father-in-laa." 
 
 " Mr. Carson," said the colonel, " can you disprove these 
 facts? Can you show that you did not expel M'Evoy from his 
 farm, and put the husband of your illegitimate daughter into it ? 
 That you did not receive his rent, decline giving him a receipt, 
 and afterwards compel him to pay twice, because he could not 
 produce the receipt which you withheld ?" 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Carson, not directly replying to the 
 colonel, " there is a base conspiracy got up against me ; and I 
 can perceive, moreover, that there is evidently some unaccount- 
 able intention on the part of Colonel B to insult my feelings 
 
 and injure my character. When paltry circumstances that have 
 occurred above ten years ago are raked up in my teeth, I have 
 
 1 A half-tumbler of punch.
 
 96 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 little to say but that it proves how very badly off the colonel 
 must have been for an imputation against my conduct and dis- 
 cretion as his agent, since he finds himself compelled to hunt so 
 far back for a charge." 
 
 " That is by no means the heaviest charge I have to bring 
 against you," replied the colonel. " There is no lack of them ; 
 nor shall you be able to complain that they are not recent, as 
 well as of longer standing. Your conduct in the case of poor 
 honest M'Evoy here is black and iniquitous. He must be 
 restored to his farm, but by other hands than yours, and that 
 ruffian instantly expelled from it. From this moment, sir, you 
 cease to be my agent. You have betrayed the confidence I 
 reposed in you ; you have misled me as to the character of my 
 tenants ; you have been a deceitful, cringing, cunning, selfish, 
 and rapacious tyrant. My people you have ground to dust ; 
 my property you have lessened in value nearly one-half, and for 
 your motives in doing this, I refer you to certain transactions 
 and legal documents which passed between us. There is 
 nothing cruel or mercenary which you did not practise in ordet 
 to enrich yourself. The whole tenor of your conduct is before 
 me. Your profligacy is not only discovered, but already 
 proved ; and you played those villainous pranks, I suppose, 
 because I have been mostly an absentee. Do not think, how- 
 ever, that you shall enjoy the fruits of your extortion ? I will 
 place the circumstances, and the proofs of the respective 
 charges against you, in the hands of my solicitor, and, by the 
 sacred heaven above me, you shall disgorge the fruits of your 
 rapacity ! My good people, I shall remain among you for 
 another fortnight, during which time I intend to go through my 
 estate, and set everything to rights as well as I can, until I may 
 appoint a humane and feeling gentleman as my agent such a 
 one as will have, at least, a character to lose. I also take this 
 opportunity of informing you that in future I shall visit you 
 often, will redress your grievances, should you have any to 
 complain of, and will give such assistance to the honest and 
 industrious among you but to them only as I trust may make 
 us better pleased with each other than we have been. Do not 
 you go, M'Evoy, until I speak to you." 
 
 During these observations Carson sat with a smile, or rather 
 a sneer, upon his lips. It was the sneer of a purse-proud 
 villain, confident that his wealth, no matter how ill-gotten, was 
 still wealth, and worth its value. 
 
 " Colonel," said he, " I have heard all you said, but you see 
 me ' so strong in honesty' that I am not moved. In the course
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 97 
 
 of a few weeks I shall have purchased an estate of my own, 
 which 1 will manage differently, for my fortune is made, sir. I 
 intend also to give up my other agencies : I am rather old, and 
 must retire to enjoy a little of the otium cum dignitate. I wish 
 you all good morning I " 
 
 The colonel turned away in abhorrence, but disdained any 
 reply. 
 
 " A say, Sam," said the Presbyterian, " bring your son-in-laa 
 wuth you." 
 
 " An' A say that too," exclaimed the drunken ruffian " A 
 say that, A do. A'm married to his daughther ; an' A say 
 
 stull that, d n my blood, bit A'll stick to my father-in-laa 1 
 
 That's the point !" and again he nodded his head, and looked 
 round him with a drunken swagger. " A'll stick to my father- 
 in-laa ! A'll do that ; feth, A wull ! m 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to inform the reader that the colonel's 
 address to Carson soon got among the assembled tenantry, and 
 a vehement volley of groans and hisses followed the discarded 
 agent up the street. 
 
 " Ha ! bad luck to you for an ould villain ! You were made 
 to hear on the deaf side o' your head at last ! You may take 
 the black wool out o' your ears now, you rip I The cries an' 
 curses o' the widows an' orphans that you made and oppressed 
 has ris up agin you at the long run ! Ha ! you beggarly nager ! 
 maybe you'll make us neglect our own work to do yours agin ! 
 Go an' gather the dhry cow-cakes, you misert, an' bring them 
 home in your pocket, to throw on the dunghill 1" 
 
 "Do you remimber the day," said others, "you met Mr. 
 
 M , an' you goin' up the street wid a cake of it in your fists, 
 
 undher your shabby skirts ; an' whin the gintleman wint to 
 shake hands wid you, how he discovered your maneness? 
 Three groans for Yallow Sam, the extortioner ! A short coorse 
 to him ! Your corner's warm below for you, you villain ! " 
 
 "But now, boys, for the colonel ! " they exclaimed. "Huzza for 
 
 noble Colonel B , the rale Irish gintleman, that wouldn't see 
 
 his tenants put upon by a villain 1 Huzza ! Hell resave yees, 
 
 shout 1 Huzza! Huzza! Huzza! Huz tundher-an'-ounze, my 
 
 voice is cracked ! Where's his coach ? where's his honour's 
 coach ? Come, boys, out wid it ! out wid it ! Tattheration to 
 yees, come ! We'll dhraw it to the divil, to hell an' back agin, 
 
 if it plases him ! Success to Colonel B 1 Blood-an'-turf ! 
 
 what'll we do for a fight ? Long life to noble Colonel B , 
 
 1 This dialect is local.
 
 98 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 the poor man's friend ! long life to him for ever, an' a day 
 longer ! Whop ! my darlin's ! Huzza ! " etc. 
 
 The warm interest which the colonel took in M'Evoy's 
 behalf was looked upon by the other tenants as a guarantee of 
 his sincerity in all he promised. Their enthusiasm knew no 
 bounds. They got out his carriage from the inn-yard and 
 drew it through the town, though the colonel himself, beyond 
 the fact of their shouting, remained quite ignorant of what 
 was going forward 
 
 After Carson's departure, the colonel's friends, having been 
 first asked to dine with him at the inn, also took their leave, 
 and none remained but M'Evoy, who waited with pleasing 
 anxiety to hear what the colonel proposed to say for he felt 
 certain that it would be agreeable. 
 
 "M'Evoy." said the colonel, " I am truly sorry for what you 
 have suffered through the villainy of my agent ; but I will give 
 you redress, and allow you for what you have lost by the 
 transaction. It is true, as I have been lately told by a person 
 who pleaded your cause nobly and eloquently, that I can never 
 repay you for what you have suffered. However, what we can 
 we will do. You are poor, I understand ? " 
 
 " God he sees that, sir ; and afflicted too, plase your 
 honour." 
 
 "Afflicted! How is that?" 
 
 " I had a son, sir a blessed boy 1 a darlin' boy ! once 
 our comfort, an' once we thought he'd be our pride an' our staff, 
 but " 
 
 The poor man's tears here flowed fast ; he took up the skirt 
 of his " Cotha More," or greatcoat, and after wiping his eyes 
 and clearing his voice, proceeded 
 
 " He was always, as I said, a blessed boy, and we looked up 
 to him always, sir. He saw our poverty, your honour, an' he 
 felt it, sir, keen enough, indeed, God help him ! How-an'-ever, 
 he took it on him to go up to Munsther, sir, undher hopes of 
 risin' us undher the hopes, poor child an' God knows, sir if 
 oh, Jimmy, avourneen machree ! I doubt I doubt you sunk 
 undher what proved too many for you ! I doubt my child's 
 dead, sir him that all our hearts wor fixed upon ; and if that 
 ud happen to be the case, nothin', sir oh, nothin' not even 
 your kindness in doin' us justice, could make us happy. We 
 would rather beg wid him, sir, nor have the best in the world 
 widout him. His poor young heart, sir, was fixed upon the 
 place your honour is restorin' us to ; an' I'm afeard his mother, 
 sir, would break her heart if she thought he couldn't share our
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 99 
 
 good fortune ! And we don't know whether he's livin' or dead ! 
 That, sir, is what's afflictin' us. I had some notion of goin' to 
 look for him ; but he tould us he would never write, or let us 
 hear from him, till he'd be either one thing or other." 
 
 " I can tell you, for your satisfaction, that your son is well, 
 M'Evoy. Believe me, he is well I know it." 
 
 " Well ! Before God, does your honour spake truth ? Well ! 
 Oh, sir, for His sake that died for us, an' for the sake of His 
 blessed mother, can you tell me is my darlin' son alive ?" 
 
 " He is living ; is in excellent health ; is as well dressed as I 
 am ; and has friends as rich and capable of assisting him as 
 myself. But how is this ? What's the matter with you ? You 
 are pale ! Good God ! Here, waiter ! Waiter 1 Waiter, I 
 say ! " 
 
 The colonel rang the bell violently, and two or three waiters 
 entered at the same moment. 
 
 " Bring a little wine and water, one of you, and let the other 
 two remove this man to the open window. Be quick ! What 
 do you stare at ?" 
 
 In a few minutes the old man recovered, and, untying the 
 narrow, coarse cravat which he wore, wiped the perspiration off 
 his pale face. 
 
 " Pray don't be too much affected," said the colonel. " Waiter, 
 bring up refreshment bring wine be quiet and calm ; you are 
 weak, poor fellow, but we will strengthen you by-and-by." 
 
 " I am wake, sir," he replied ; "for, God help us ! this was a 
 hard year upon us ; and we suffered what few could bear. But 
 he's livin', colonel. Our darlin' is livin' ! Oh, colonel, your 
 kindness went to my heart this day afore, but that was nothin' 
 he's livin' an' well ! On my two knees, before God, I thank you 
 for them words ! I thank you a thousand an' a thousand times 
 more for them words nor for what your honour did about 
 Yallow Sam/ 1 
 
 "Get up," said the colonel "get up. The proceedings of 
 the day have produced a revulsion of feeling which has 
 rendered you incapable of sustaining intelligence of your son. 
 He is well, I assure you. Bring those things to this table, 
 waiter." 
 
 " But can your honour tell me anything in particular about 
 him, sir? What he's doin' or what he intends to do?" 
 
 " Yes ; he is at a respectable boarding-school." 
 
 " Boordin'-school ! But isn't boordin'-schools Protestants, sir?" 
 
 " Not all ; he is at a Catholic boarding-school, and reading 
 hard to be a priest, which, I hope, he will soon be. He has
 
 TOO THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 good friends, and you may thank him for being restored to 
 your farm." 
 
 " Glory be to my Maker for that ! Oh, sir, your tenants wor 
 desaved in you ! They thought, sir, that you wor a hard- 
 hearted gintleman, that didn't care whether they lived or 
 died." 
 
 " I feel that I neglected them too long, M'Evoy. Now take 
 some refreshment: eat something, and afterwards drink a few 
 glasses of wine. Your feelings have been much excited, and 
 you will be the better for it. Keep up your spirits. I am going 
 to ride, and must leave you ; but if you call on me to-morrow, 
 at one o'clock, I shall have more good news for you. We must 
 stock your farm, and enable you to enter upon it creditably." 
 
 "Sir," said M'Evoy, "you are a Protestant; but, as I hope 
 to enther glory, I an' my wife an' childhre will pray that your 
 bed may be made in heaven, this night ; and that your honour 
 may be led to see the thruth an' the right coorse." 
 
 The colonel then left him, and the simple man, on looking at 
 the cold meat, bread, and wine before him, raised his hands 
 and eyes towards heaven to thank God for his goodness, and 
 to invoke a blessing upon his noble and munificent benefactor. 
 
 But how shall we describe the feelings of his family when, 
 after returning home, he related the occurrences of that day. 
 The severe and pressing exigencies under which they laboured 
 had prevented his sons from attending the investigation that 
 was to take place in town. Their expectations, however, were 
 raised, and they looked out with intense anxiety for the return 
 of their father. 
 
 At length he was seen coming slowly up the hill ; the spades 
 were thrown aside, and the whole family assembled to hear 
 " what was done." 
 
 The father entered in silence, sat down, and after wiping his 
 brow and laying down his hat, placing his staff across it, upon 
 the floor, he drew his breath deeply. 
 
 " Dominick," said the wife, " what news ? What was done ?" 
 
 " Vara," replied Dominick, "do you remember the day fair 
 and handsome you wor then when I first kissed your lips as 
 my own darlin' wife ? " 
 
 'Ah, avourneen, Dominick, don't spake of them times. The 
 happiness we had then is long gone, acushla, in one sense." 
 
 "It's before me like yestherday, Vara the delight that went 
 through my heart, jist as clear as yestherday, or the blessed sun 
 that's shinin' through the broken windy on the floor there. I 
 remimber, Vara, saying to you that day I don't know whether
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 101 
 
 you remimber it or not but / remimber sayin' to you, that if I 
 lived a thousand years I could never feel sich happiness as I did 
 when I first pressed you to my heart as my own wife." 
 
 " Well, but we want to hear what happened, Dominick, 
 achora." 
 
 " Do you remimber the words, Vara?" 
 
 " Och ! I do, avourneen. Didrit they go into my heart at the 
 time, an' how could I forget them ? But I can't bear, somehow, 
 to look back at what we wor then, bekase I feel my heart brakin', 
 acushla!" 
 
 " Well, Vara, look at me. Amn't I a poor wasted crathur 
 now, in comparishment to what I was thin?" 
 
 " God he sees the change that's in you, darlin' ! But sure 
 'twasn't your fau't, or mine either, Dominick, avillish ! " 
 
 " Well, Vara, you see me now I'm happier before God, 
 I'm happier happier a thousand degrees than I was thin ! 
 Come to my arms, asthore inachree my heart's breakin' 
 but it's wid happiness don't be frightened it's wid joy I'm 
 sheddin' these tears it's wid happiness an' delight I'm crying 1 
 Jimmy is livin' and well, childhre he's livin' an' well, Vara 
 the star of our hearts is livin' an' well, an', happy ! Kneel 
 down, childhre kneel down 1 Bend before the great God, an' 
 thank him for his kindness to your blessed brother to our 
 blessed son. Bless the colonel, childhre bless him whin 
 you're down, Protestant an' all as he is. Oh, bless him as if 
 you prayed for myself, or for Jimmy, that's far away from us !" 
 
 He paused for a few minutes, bent his head upon his hands 
 as he knelt in supplication at the chair, then resumed his seat, 
 as did the whole family, deeply affected. 
 
 " Now, childhre," said he, " I'll tell yees all ; but don't any 
 of you be so poor a crathur as I was to-day. Bear it mild an' 
 asy, Vara, acushla, for I know it will take a start out of you. 
 Sure we're to go back to our own ould farm 1 Ay, an' what's 
 more oh, God of heaven, bless him ! what's more, the colonel 
 is to stock it for us, an" to help us ; an' what is more, Yallow 
 Sam is out.' OUT I !" 
 
 "Out!" they exclaimed. "Jimmy well, an' Yallow Sam 
 out ! Oh, father, surely " 
 
 " Now behave, I say. Ay, and never to come in again ! But 
 who do you think got him out?" 
 
 " Who ? why God he knows. Who could get him out ?" 
 
 " Our son, Vara our son, childhre : Jimmy got him out, an 1 
 got ourselves back to our farm! 1 had it partly from the 
 noble colonel's own lips, an' the remainder from Mr. M .y,
 
 io2 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 that I met on my way home. But there's more to come. 
 Sure Jimmy has friends aquil to the colonel himself; an' sure 
 he's at a Catholic boordin'-school, among gintlemen's childhre, 
 an' in a short time he'll be a priest in full ordhers." 
 
 We here draw a veil over the delight of the family. Ques- 
 tions upon questions, replies upon replies, sifting and cross- 
 examinations, followed in rapid succession, until all was known 
 that the worthy man had to communicate. 
 
 Another simple scene followed, which, as an Irishman, I 
 write with sorrow. When the joy of the family had somewhat 
 subsided, the father, putting his hand in his coat-pocket, pulled 
 out several large slices of mutton. 
 
 "Along wid all, childhre," said he, "the colonel ordhercd 
 me my dinner. I ate plenty myself, an' slipped these slices in 
 my pocket for yees ; but the divil a one o' me knows what 
 kind o' mate it is. An' I got wine, too ! Oh ! well, they may 
 talk, but wine is the dhrink ! Bring me the ould knife, till I 
 make a fair divide among yees. Musha, what kind o' mite can 
 it be, for myself doesn't remimber atin' any sort, barrin' bacon, 
 an' a bit o' beef of an odd time?" 
 
 They all ate with an experimental air of sagacity that was 
 rather amusing. None, however, had ever tasted mutton 
 before, and consequently the nature and quality of the meat 
 remained on that occasion a profound secret to M'Evoy and 
 his family. 1 It is true they supposed it to be mutton, but not one 
 of them could pronounce it to be such, from any positive know- 
 ledge of its peculiar flavour. 
 
 " Well," said Dominick, " it's no matther what the name of it 
 is, in regard that it's good mate, anyway, for them that has 
 enough of it." 
 
 With a fervent heart and streaming eyes did this virtuous 
 family offer up their grateful prayers to that God whose laws 
 they had not knowingly violated, and to whose providence they 
 owed so much. Nor was their benefactor forgotten. The 
 strength and energy of the Irish language, being that in which 
 the peasantry usually pray, were well adapted to express the 
 depth of their gratitude towards a man who had, as they said, 
 " humbled himself to look into their wants, as if he was like 
 one of themselves." 
 
 For upwards of ten years they had not gone to bed free from 
 the heaviness of care, or the wasting grasp of poverty. Now 
 
 1 There are hundreds of thousands yes, millions of the poorer 
 classes in Ireland who have never tasted mutton !
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 103 
 
 their hearth was once more surrounded by peace and content- 
 ment ; their burthens were removed, their pulses beat freely, 
 and the language of happiness again was heard under their 
 humble roof. Even sleep could not repress the vivacity of their 
 enjoyments : they dreamt of their brother for in the Irish 
 heart the domestic affections hold the first place they dreamt 
 of the farm to which those affections had so long yearned. 
 They trod it again as its legitimate possessors. Its fields were 
 brighter, its corn waved with softer murmurs to the breeze, its 
 harvests were richer, and the song of their harvest home more 
 cheerful than before. Their delight was tumultuous, but 
 intense ; and when they arose in the morning to 
 
 " A sober certainty of waking bliss," 
 
 they again knelt in worship to God with exulting hearts, and 
 again offered up their sincere prayers in behalf of the just man 
 who had asserted their rights against the oppressor. 
 
 Colonel B was a man who, without having been aware of 
 
 it, possessed an excellent capacity for business. The neglect of 
 his property resulted not from want of feeling, but merely from 
 want of consideration. There had, moreover, been no pre- 
 cedent for him to follow. He had seen no Irishman of rank 
 ever bestow a moment's attention on his tenantry. They had 
 been, for the most part, absentees like himself, and felt satisfied 
 if they succeeded in receiving their half-yearly remittance in 
 due course, without ever reflecting for a moment upon the 
 situation of those from whom it was drawn. 
 
 Nay, what was more he had not seen even the resident 
 gentry enter into the state and circumstances of those who lived 
 upon their property. It was a mere accident that determined 
 him to become acquainted with his tenants ; but no sooner had 
 he seen his duty, and come to the resolution of performing it, 
 than the decision of his character became apparent. It is true 
 that within the last few years the Irish landlords have advanced 
 in knowledge. Many of them have introduced more improved 
 systems of agriculture, and instructed their tenants in the best 
 methods of applying them ; but during the time of which we 
 write, an Irish landlord only saw his tenants when canvassing 
 them for their votes, and instructing them in dishonesty and 
 perjury, not reflecting that he was then teaching them to 
 practise the arts of dissimulation and fraud against himself. 
 This was the late system ; let us hope that it will be superseded 
 by a better one ; and that a landlord will think it a duty, but
 
 104 TH& POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 neither a trouble nor a condescension, to look into his own 
 affairs, and keep an eye upon the morals and habits of his 
 tenantry. 
 
 The colonel, as he had said, remained more than a fortnight 
 upon his estate; and, as he often declared since, the recollec- 
 tions arising from the good which he performed during that 
 brief period rendered it the portion of his past life upon which 
 he could look with most satisfaction. He did not leave the 
 country till he saw M'Evoy and his family restored to their 
 farm, and once more independent until he had redressed 
 every well-founded complaint, secured the affections of those 
 who had before detested him, and diffused peace and comfort 
 amongst every family upon his estate. From thenceforth he 
 watched the interests of his tenants, and soon found that in 
 promoting their welfare, and instructing them in their duties, he 
 was more his own benefactor than theirs. Before many years 
 had elapsed his property was wonderfully improved ; he 
 himself was called the "Lucky Landlord," "bekase," said the 
 people, " ever since he spoke to an' advised his tenants, we find 
 that it's lucky to live undher him. The people has heart to 
 work wid a gintleman that won't grind thim ; an' so sign's on 
 it, every one thrives upon his land ; an' dang my bones, but 
 I believe a rotten stick ud grow on it, set in case it was thried." 
 
 In sooth, his popularity became proverbial ; but it is probable 
 that not even his justice and humanity contributed so much to 
 this as the vigour with which he prosecuted his suit against 
 "Yellow Sam," whom he compelled literally to "disgorge" the 
 fruits of his heartless extortions. This worthy agent died soon 
 after his disgrace, without any legitimate issue ; and his pro- 
 perty, which amounted to about fifty thousand pounds, is now 
 inherited by a gentleman of the strictest honour and integrity. 
 To this day his memory is detested by the people, who, with 
 that bitterness by which they stigmatise a villain, have erected 
 him into a standard of dishonesty. If a man become remark- 
 able for want of principle, they usually say, " He's as great a 
 rogue as Yellow Sam," or, " He is the greatest sconce that ever 
 was in the country, barrirf Yellow Sam." 
 
 We now dismiss him, and request our readers at the same 
 time not to suppose that we have held him up as a portrait of 
 Irish agents in general. On the contrary, we believe that they 
 constitute a most respectable class of men, who have certainly 
 very difficult duties to perform. The Irish landlords, we are 
 happy to say, taught by experience, have, for the most part, 
 both seen and felt the necessity of appointing gentlemen of
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 105 
 
 property to situations so very important, and which require so 
 much patience, consideration, and humanity in those who fill 
 them. We trust they will persevere in this plan ; but we can 
 assure them that all the virtues of the best agent can never 
 compensate, in the opinion of the people, for neglect in the 
 " Head Landlord." One visit or act even of nominal kindness 
 from him will at any time produce more attachment and 
 gratitude among them than a whole life spent in good offices by 
 an agent. Like Sterne's French Beggar, they would prefer a 
 pinch of snuff from the one to a guinea from the other. The 
 agent only renders them a favour, but the Head Landlord does 
 them an honour. 
 
 Colonel B , immediately after his return home, sent for 
 
 Mr. O'Brien, who waited on him with a greater degree of 
 curiosity than perhaps he had ever felt before. The colonel 
 smiled as he extended his hand to him. 
 
 "Mr. O'Brien," said he, " 1 knew you would feel anxious to 
 hear the result of my visit to the estate which this man with the 
 nickname managed for me." 
 
 " Managed, sir ! Did you say managA// '' 
 
 " I spoke in the past time, O'Brien ; he is out." 
 
 " Then your protege's story was correct, sir ?" 
 
 " To a tittle. O'Brien, there is something extraordinary 
 in that boy ; otherwise how could it happen that a sickly, 
 miserable-looking creature, absolutely in tatters, could have 
 impressed us both so strongly with a sense of the injustice 
 done ten years ago to his father? It is indeed remarkable." 
 
 " The boy, colonel, deeply felt that act of injustice, and the 
 expression of it came home to the heart." 
 
 " I have restored his father, however. The poor man 
 and his family are once more happy. I have stocked their 
 old farm for them ; in fact, they now enjoy comfort and 
 independence." 
 
 " I am glad, sir, that you have done them justice. That act 
 alone will go far to redeem your character from the odium 
 which the conduct of your agent was calculated to throw 
 upon it." 
 
 "There is not probably in Ireland a landlord so popular as 
 I am at this moment among my tenants on that properly. 
 Restoring M'Evoy, however, is but a small part of what I have 
 done. Carson's pranks were incredible. He was a rack-renter 
 of the first water. A person named Brady had paid him 
 twenty-five guineas as a douceur in other words, as a bribe for 
 renewing a lease for him ; yet, after having received the money,
 
 io6 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 he kept the poor man dangling after him, and at length told 
 him that he was offered a larger sum by another. In some 
 cases he kept back the receipts, and made the poor people pay 
 twice, which was still more iniquitous. Then, sir, he would not 
 take bank-notes in payment. No ; he was so wonderfully con- 
 scientious, and so zealously punctual, in fulfilling my wishes, as 
 he told them, on the subject, that nothing would pass in pay- 
 ment but gold. This gold, sir, they were compelled to receive 
 from himself at a most oppressive premium ; so that he actually 
 fleeced them, under my name, in every conceivable manner and 
 form of villainy. He is a usurer too, and, I am told, worth 
 forty or fifty thousand pounds ; but, thank heaven ! he is no 
 longer an agent of mine.'' 
 
 " It gives me sincere pleasure, sir, that you have at length 
 got correct habits of thinking upon your duties as an Irish 
 
 landlord ; for believe me, Colonel B , as a subject involving 
 
 a great portion of national happiness or national misery, it is 
 entitled to the deepest and most serious consideration, not only 
 of the class to which you belong, but of the legislature. Some- 
 thing should be done, sir, to improve the condition of the poorer 
 classes. A rich country and poor inhabitants is an anomaly ; 
 and whatever is done should be prompt and effectual. If the 
 Irish landlords looked directly into the state of their tenantry, 
 and set themselves vigorously to the task of bettering their cir- 
 cumstances, they would, I am certain, establish the^tranquillity 
 and happiness of the country at large. The great secret, 
 colonel, of the dissensions that prevail among us is the poverty 
 of the people. They are poor, and therefore the more easily 
 wrought up to outrage; they are poor, and think that any 
 change must be for the better; they are not only poor, but 
 imaginative, and the fittest recipients for those vague specula- 
 tions by which they are deluded. Let their condition be im- 
 proved, and the most fertile source of popular tumult and 
 crime is closed. Let them be taught how to labour; let them 
 not be bowed to the earth by rents so far above the real value 
 of their lands. The pernicious maxims which float among them 
 must be refuted not by theory, but by practical lessons per- 
 formed before their eyes for their own advantage. Let them be 
 taught how to discriminate between their real interes'.s and 
 their prejudices ; and none can teach them all this so effectually 
 as their landlords, if they could be roused from their apathy, 
 and induced to undertake the task. Who ever saw a poor 
 nation without great crimes ?" 
 
 " Very true, O'Brien quite true. I am resolved to inspect
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 107 
 
 personally the condition of those who reside on my othei 
 estates. But now about our prottgt. How is he doing ?" 
 
 "Extremely well. I have had a letter from him a few days 
 ago, in which he alludes to the interest you have taken in him- 
 self and his family with a depth of feeling truly affecting.'' 
 
 "When you write to him, let him know that I have placed 
 his father in his old farm ; and that Carson is out. Say I am 
 sure he will conduct himself properly, in which case I charge 
 myself with his expenses until he shall have accomplished his 
 purpose. After that he may work his own way through life, 
 and I have no doubt but he will do it well and honourably." 
 
 Colonel B 's pledge on this occasion was nobly redeemed. 
 
 Our humble hero pursued his studies with zeal and success. In 
 due time he entered Maynooth, where he distinguished himself 
 not simply for smartness as a student, but as a young man pos- 
 sessed of a Blind far above the common order. During all this 
 time nothing occurred worthy of particular remark, except that, 
 in fulfilment of his former vow, he never wrote to any of his 
 friends; for the reader should have been told that this was 
 originally comprehended in the determination he had formed. 
 He received ordination at the hands of his friend the bishop, 
 whom we have already introduced to the reader, and on the 
 same day he was appointed by that gentleman to a curacy in 
 his own parish. The colonel, whose regard for him never 
 cooled, presented him with fifty pounds, together with a horse, 
 saddle, and bridle; so that he found himself in a capacity to 
 enter upon his duties in a decent and becoming manner. 
 Another circumstance that added considerably to his satisfac- 
 tion was the appointment of Mr. O'Brien to a parish adjoining 
 that of the bishop. James's afflictions had been the means of 
 bringing the merits of that excellent man before his spiritual 
 superior, who became much attached to him, and availed him- 
 self of the earliest opportunity of rewarding his unobtrusive 
 piety and benevolence. 
 
 No sooner was his ordination completed than the long-sup- 
 pressed yearnings after his home and kindred came upon his 
 spirit with a power that could not be restrained. He took leave 
 of his friends with a beating heart, and set out on a delightful 
 summer morning to revisit all that had been, notwithstanding 
 his long absence and severe trials, so strongly wrought into his 
 memory and affections. Our readers may therefore suppose 
 him on his journey home, and permit themselves to be led in 
 imagination to the house of his former friend, Lanigan, where 
 we must lay the scene for the present.
 
 io8 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 Lanigan's residence has the same comfortable and warm 
 appearance which always distinguishes the habitation of the 
 independent and virtuous man. What, however, can the stir, 
 and bustle, and agitation which prevail in it mean ? The 
 daughters run out to a little mound, or natural terrace, beside the 
 house, and look anxiously towards the road ; then return, and 
 almost immediately appear again, with the same intense 
 anxiety to catch a glimpse of some one whom they expect. 
 They look keenly ; but why is it that their disappointment 
 appears to be attended with such dismay ? They go into their 
 father's house once more, wringing their hands and betraying 
 all the symptoms of affliction. Here is their mother, too, 
 coming to peer into the distance ; she is rocking with that 
 motion peculiar to Irishwomen when suffering distress. She 
 places her open hand upon her brows that she may collect her 
 sight to a particular spot ; she is blinded by her tears, breaks 
 out into a low wail, and returns with something like the dark- 
 ness of despair on her countenance. She goes into the house, 
 passes through the kitchen, and enters into a bedroom ; seats 
 herself on a chair beside the bed, and renews her low but 
 bitter wail of sorrow. Her husband is lying in that state 
 which the peasantry know usually precedes the agonies of 
 death. 
 
 "For the sake of the livin' God," said he, on seeing her, "is 
 there any sign o' them ?" 
 
 "Not yet, a suillish; but they will soon they must soon, 
 asthore, be here, an' tliin your mind will be asy." 
 
 " Oh, Alley, Alley, if you could know what I suffer for fraid 
 I'd die widout the priest, you'd pity me !" 
 
 " I do pity you, asthore ; but don't be cast down, for I have 
 my trust in God that he won't desart you in your last hour. You 
 did what you could, my heart's pride ; you bent before Him night 
 an' mornin', and sure the poor neighbour never wint from your 
 door widout lavin' his blessin' behind him." 
 
 The dying man raised his hands feebly from the bed-clothes. 
 "Ah ! " he exclaimed, " I thought I did a great dale, Alley; but 
 now but now it appears nothin' to what I ought to a done 
 when I could. Still, avourneen, my life's not unpleasant when 
 I look back at it ; for I can't remimber that I ever purposely 
 offinded a livin' mortal. All I want to satisfy me is the priest." 
 
 " No, avourneen, you did not ; for it wasn't in you to offind a 
 child." 
 
 "Alley, you'll pardon me an' forgive me, acushla, if ever if 
 ever I did what was displasin' to you 1 An' call in the childhre,
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 109 
 
 till I see them about me I want to have their forgiveness, too. 
 I know I'll have it, for they wor good childhre, an' ever loved 
 me." 
 
 The daughters now entered the room, exclaiming, "AAir 
 dheelish (beloved father), Pether is comin' by himself, but no 
 priest ! Blessed Queen of Heaven, what will we do ? Oh 1 
 father darlin', are you to die widout the Holy Ointment?" 
 
 The sick man clasped his hands, looked towards heaven, and 
 groaned aloud. 
 
 "Oh, it's hard this," said he. " It's hard upon me ! Yet I 
 won't be cast down. I'll trust in my good God ; I'll trust in his 
 blessed name ! " 
 
 His wife, on hearing that her son was returned without the 
 priest, sat with her face shrouded by her apron, weeping in grief 
 that none but they who know the dependence which those 
 belonging to her Church place in its last rites can comprehend. 
 The children appeared almost distracted ; their grief had more 
 of that stunning character which attends unexpected calamity 
 than of sorrow for one who is gradually drawn from life. 
 
 At length the messenger entered the room, and, almost choked 
 with tears, stated that both priests were absent that day at 
 Conference, and would not return till late. 
 
 The hitherto moderated grief of the wife arose to a pitch much 
 wilder than the death of her husband could, under ordinary 
 circumstances, occasion. To die without absolution to pass 
 away into eternity " unanointed, unaneled ; ' without being 
 purified from the inherent stains of humanity was to her a much 
 deeper affliction than her final separation from him. She cried 
 in tones of the most piercing despair, and clapped her hands, as 
 they do who weep over the dead. Had he died in the calm 
 confidence of having received the Viaticum, or Sacrament, before 
 death, his decease would have had nothing remarkably calamitous 
 in it, beyond usual occurrences of a similar nature. Now the 
 grief was intensely bitter in consequence of his expected 
 departure without the priest. His sons and daughters felt it 
 as forcibly as his wife ; their lamentations were full of the 
 strongest and sharpest agony. 
 
 For nearly three hours did they remain in this situation ; 
 poor Lanigan sinking by degrees into that collapsed state from 
 which there is no possibility of rallying. He was merely able 
 to speak and recognise his family ; but every moment advanced 
 him, with awful certainty, nearer and nearer to his end. 
 
 A great number of the neighbours were now assembled, all 
 participating in the awful feeling which predominated, and 
 
 y
 
 no THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 anxious to compensate by their prayers for the absence of that 
 confidence derived by Roman Catholics, during the approach 
 of death, from the spiritual aid of the priest. They were all at 
 prayer ; the sick room and kitchen were crowded with his 
 friends and acquaintances, many of whom knelt out before the 
 door, and joined with loud voices in the Rosary which was 
 offered up in his behalf. 
 
 In this crisis were they when a horseman, dressed in black, 
 approached the house. Every head was instantly turned round, 
 with a hope that it might be the parish priest or his curate ; 
 but, alas ! they were doomed to experience a fresh disappoint- 
 ment. The stranger, though clerical enough in his appear- 
 ance, presented a countenance with which none of them was 
 acquainted. On glancing at the group who knelt around the 
 door, he appeared to understand the melancholy cause which 
 brought them together. 
 
 " How is this ?" he exclaimed. " Is there any one here sick 
 or dying?" 
 
 " Poor Misther Lanigan, sir, is jist departin', glory be to God ! 
 An' what is terrible all out upon himself and family, he's dyin' 
 widout the priest. They're both at Conwhirence, sir, an' can't 
 come Mr. Dogherty an' his curate." 
 
 "Make way!" said the stranger, throwing himself off his 
 horse, and passing quickly through the people. " Show me to 
 the sick man's room be quick, my friends I am a Catholic 
 clergyman." 
 
 In a moment a passage was cleared, and the stranger found 
 himself beside the bed of death. Grief in the room was loud 
 and bitter ; but his presence stilled it, despite of what they felt. 
 
 " My dear friends," said he, " you know there should be 
 silence in the apartment of a dying man. For shame 1 for 
 shame 1 Cease this clamour; it will but distract him for whom 
 you weep, and prevent him from composing his mind for the 
 great trial that is before him." 
 
 "Sir," said Lanigan's wife, seizing his hand in both hers, and 
 looking distractedly in his face, " are you a priest ? For heaven's 
 sake, tell us ? " 
 
 " I am," he replied. " Leave the room every one of you. I 
 hope your husband is not speechless ?" 
 
 " Sweet Queen of Heaven, not yet, may her name be praised ! 
 but near it, your reverence widin little or no time of it." 
 
 Whilst they spoke he was engaged in putting the stole about 
 his neck, after which he cleared the room, and commenced 
 hearing Lanigan's confession.
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. in 
 
 The appearance of a priest, and the consolation it produced, 
 rallied the powers of life in the benevolent farmer. He became 
 more collected ; made a clear and satisfactory confession ; 
 received the sacrament of extreme unction ; and felt himself 
 able to speak with tolerable distinctness and precision. The 
 effects of all this were astonishing. A placid serenity, full of 
 hope and confidence, beamed from the pale and worn features 
 of him who was but a few minutes before in a state of terror 
 altogether indescribable. When his wife and family, after 
 having been called in, observed this change, they immediately 
 participated in his tranquillity. Death had been deprived of its 
 sting, and grief of its bitterness ; their sorrow was still deep, 
 but it was not darkened by the dread of future misery. They 
 felt for him as a beloved father, a kind husband, and a dear 
 friend, who had lived a virtuous life, feared God, and was now 
 about to pass into happiness. 
 
 When the rites of the Church were administered, and the 
 family again assembled around the bed, the priest sat down in 
 a position which enabled him to see the features of this good 
 man more distinctly. 
 
 " I would be glad," said Lanigan, " to know who it is that 
 God in his goodness has sent to smooth my bed in death, if it 
 ud be plasin', sir, to you to tell me?" 
 
 "Do you remember," replied the priest, "a young lad whom 
 you met some years ago on his way to Munster as a poor 
 scholar? You and your family were particularly kind to him 
 so kind that he has never since forgotten your affectionate 
 hospitality." 
 
 " We do, your reverence, we do. A mild, gentle crathur he 
 was, poor boy. I hope God prospered him." 
 
 " You see him now before you," said the priest. " I am that 
 boy, and I thank God that I can testify, however slightly, my 
 deep sense of the virtues which you exercised towards me ; 
 although I regret that the occasion is one of such affliction." 
 
 The farmer raised his eyes and feeble hands towards heaven. 
 " Praise an' glory to your name, good God ! " he exclaimed. 
 " Praise an' glory to your holy name 1 Now I know that I'm 
 not forgotten, when you brought back the little kindness I did 
 that boy for your sake, wid so many blessin's to me in the hour 
 of my affliction an' sufferin' 1 Childhre, remember this, now 
 that I'm goin' to lave yees for ever ! Remimber always to help 
 the stranger, an' thim that's poor an' in sorrow. If you do, God 
 won't forget it to you ; but will bring it back to yees when you 
 stand in need of it, as he has done to me this day. You see,
 
 ii2 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 childhie dear, how small trifles o' that kind depend on one 
 another. If I hadn't thought of helpin' his reverence here when 
 he was young an' away from his own, he wouldn't think of callin' 
 upon us this day as he was passin'. You see the hand of God 
 is in it, childhre ; which it is, indeed, in everything that passes 
 about us, if we could only see it as we ought to do. Thin, but 
 I'd like to look upon your face, sir, if it's plasin' to you ? A little 
 more to the light, sir. There, I now see you. Ay, indeed, it's 
 changed for the betther, it is the same mild, clear countenance, 
 but not sorrowful, as when I seen it last. Suffer me to put my 
 hand on your head, sir ; I'd like to bless you before I die, for I 
 can't forget what you undhertook to do for your paarents." 
 
 The priest sat near him ; but finding that he was scarcely 
 able to raise his hand to his head, he knelt down, and the 
 farmer, before he communicated the blessing, inquired 
 
 " Musha, sir, may I ax, wor you able to do anythink to help 
 your family as you expected ?" 
 
 "God," said the priest, "made me the instrument of raising 
 them from their poverty; they are now comfortable and happy." 
 
 "Ay ! Well I knew at the time, an' I said it, that a blessin' 
 would attind your endayvours. An' now resave my blessin'. 
 May you never depart from the right way ! May the blessin' of 
 God rest upon you for ever Amin ! Childhre, I'm gettin' wake; 
 come near me, till till I bless you, too, for the last time ! 
 They wor good childhre, sir they were ever an' always good to 
 me, an' to their poor mother, your reverence ; an' God forgive 
 me if it's a sin ! but I feel a grate dale o' my heart an' my love 
 fixed upon them. But sure, I'm their father, an' God, I hope, 
 will look over it ! Now, darlin's, afore I bless yees, I ax youi 
 forgiveness if ever I was harsher to yees than I ought ! " 
 
 The children with a simultaneous movement encircled his 
 bed, and could not reply for some minutes. 
 
 " Never, father darlin' ! Oh, never did you offind us 1 Don't 
 speak in that way, or you'll break our hearts ; but forgive us, 
 father asthore ! Oh, forgive an' bless us, an' don't remimber 
 against us our folly an' disobedience, for it's only now that we 
 see we warn't towards you as we ought to be. Forgive us an' 
 pardon us ! " 
 
 He then made them all kneel around his bed, and, with 
 solemn words and an impressive manner, placed his hand upon 
 their heads, and blessed them with a virtuous father's last 
 blessing. 
 
 He then called for his wife, and the scene became not only 
 more touching, but more elevated. There was an exultation in
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 113 
 
 her manner, and an expression of vivid hope in her eye, arising 
 from the fact of her husband having received, and been soothed 
 by, the rites of her Church, that gave evident proof of the 
 unparalleled attachment borne by persons of her class to the 
 Catholic religion. The arrival of our hero had been so unex- 
 pected, and the terrors of the tender wife for her husband's 
 soul so great, that the administration of the sacrament almost 
 superseded from her heart every other sensation than that of 
 devotional triumph. Even now, in the midst of her tears, that 
 triumph kindled in her eye, with a light that shone in melan- 
 choly beauty upon the bed of death. In proportion, however, 
 as the parting scene which was to be their last began to 
 work with greater power upon her sorrow, so did this expression 
 gradually fade away. Grief for his loss resumed its dominion 
 over her heart so strongly that their last parting was afflicting 
 even to look upon. 
 
 When it was over, Lanigan once more addressed the priest. 
 
 "Now, sir," he observed, but with great difficulty, "let me 
 have your blessin' an' your prayers ; an' along wid that, your 
 reverence, if you remimber a request I once made to you " 
 
 " I remember it well," replied the priest ; " you allude to the 
 masses which you wished me to say for you, should I ever 
 receive Orders. Make your mind easy on that point. I not 
 only shall offer up mass for the repose of your soul, but I can 
 assure you that I have mentioned you by name in every mass 
 which I celebrated since my ordination." 
 
 He then proceeded to direct the mind of his dying benefactor 
 to such subjects as were best calculated to comfort and 
 strengthen him. 
 
 About daybreak the next morning this man of many virtues, 
 after struggling rather severely for two hours preceding his 
 death, passed into eternity, there to enjoy the recompense of a 
 well-spent life. 
 
 When he was dead, the priest, who never left him during the 
 night, approached the bed, and after surveying his benevolent 
 features, now composed in the stillness of death, exclaimed 
 
 " Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from 
 their labours, and their works do follow them ! " 
 
 Having uttered these words aloud, he sat down beside the 
 bed, buried his face in his handkerchief, and wept. 
 
 He was now only a short day's journey from home, and as 
 his presence, he knew, would be rather a restraint upon 
 a family so much in affliction, he bade them farewell, and 
 proceeded on his way. He travelled slowly, and as every
 
 ii4 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 well-known hill or lake appeared to him, his heart beat quickly, 
 his memory gave up its early stores, and his affections prepared 
 themselves for the trial that was before them. 
 
 "It is better for me not to arrive," thought he, "until the 
 family shall have returned from their daily labour, and are 
 collected about the hearth." 
 
 In the meantime many an impression of profound and fervid 
 piety came over him, when he reflected upon the incon- 
 trovertible proofs of providential protection and interference 
 which had been, during his absence from home, under his 
 struggles, and in his good fortune, so clearly laid before him. 
 " Deep," he exclaimed, "is the gratitude I owe to God for this; 
 may I never forget to acknowledge it ! " 
 
 It was now about seven o'clock ; the evening was calm, and 
 the sun shone with that clear amber light which gives warmth 
 and the power of exciting tenderness to natural scenery. He 
 had already gained the ascent which commanded a view of the 
 rich sweep of country that reposed below. There it lay his 
 native home his native parish bathed in the light and glory 
 of the hour. Its fields were green its rivers shining like 
 loosened silver its meadows already studded with haycocks, 
 its green pastures covered with sheep, and its unruffled lakes 
 reflecting the hills under which they lay. Here and there a 
 gentleman's residence rose among the distant trees, and well 
 did he recognise the church spire that cut into the western sky 
 on his right. It is true, nothing of the grandeur and magni- 
 ficence of nature was there ; everything was simple in its 
 beauty. The quiet charm, the serene light, the air of happiness 
 and peace that reposed upon all he saw, stirred up a thousand 
 tender feelings in a heart whose gentle character resembled 
 that of the prospect which it felt so exquisitely. The smoke 
 of a few farm-houses and cottages rose in blue, graceful 
 columns to the air, giving just that appearance of life which 
 was necessary ; and a figure or two, with lengthened shadows, 
 moved across the fields and meadows a little below where he 
 stood. 
 
 But our readers need not to be told that there was one spot 
 which, beyond all others, riveted his attention. On that spot 
 his eager eye rested long and intensely. The spell of its 
 remembrance had clung to his early heart ; he had never seen 
 it in his dreams without weeping ; and often had the agitation 
 of his imaginary sorrow awoke him with his eyelashes steeped 
 in tears. He looked down on it steadily. At length he was 
 moved with a strong sensation like grief; he sobbed twice
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR. lr$ 
 
 or thrice, and the tears rolled in showers from his eyes. 
 His gathering affections were relieved by this ; he felt lighter, 
 and in the same slow manner rode onward to his father's 
 house. 
 
 To this there were two modes of access : one by a paved 
 bridleway, or boreen, that ran up directly before the door ; the 
 other by a green lane, that diverged from the boreen about a fur- 
 long below the house. He took the latter, certain that the family 
 could not notice his approach, nor hear the noise of his horse's 
 footsteps, until he could arrive at the very threshold. On dis- 
 mounting, he felt that he could scarcely walk. He approached 
 the door, however, as steadily as he could. He entered and 
 the family, who had just finished their supper, rose up, as a 
 mark of their respect to the stranger. 
 
 " Is this," he inquired, " the house in which Dominick 
 M'Evoy lives?" 
 
 " That's my name, sir," replied Dominick. 
 
 " The family, I trust, are all well ? I have been desired 
 but no no I cannot I cannot ! FATHER ! MOTHER 1" 
 
 " It's him ! " shrieked the mother " it's himself ! Jimmy ! " 
 
 'Jimmy! Jimmy!" shouted the father, with a cry of joy 
 which might be heard far beyond the house. 
 
 "Jimmy! our poor Jimmy!" exclaimed his brothers and 
 sisters. 
 
 " Asy, childhre," said the father "asy; let the mother to him 
 let her to him. Who has the right that she has ? Vara, 
 asthore Vara, think of yourself. God of heaven ! what is 
 comin' over her ? Her brain's turned ! " 
 
 " Father, don't remove her," said the son. " Leave her arms 
 where they are ; it's long since they encircled my neck before. 
 Often often would I have given the wealth of the universe to 
 be encircled in my blessed and beloved mother's arms ! Yes, 
 yes ! Weep, my father weep, each of you. You see those 
 tears : consider them as a proof that I have never forgotten 
 you! Beloved mother! recollect yourself; she knows me not 
 her eyes wander ! I fear the shock has been too much for 
 her. Place a chair at the door, and I will bring her to the 
 air." 
 
 After considerable effort the mother's faculties were restored 
 so far as to be merely conscious that our hero was her son. 
 She had not yet shed a tear, but now she surveyed his counten- 
 ance, smiled and named him, placed her hands upon him, and 
 examined his dress with a singular blending of conflicting 
 emotions, but still without being thoroughly collected.
 
 n6 THE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 " I will speak to her," said Jemmy, " in Irish ; it will go 
 directly to her heart. Mhair, avourneen, tha ma, laht, anish ! 
 Mother, my darling, I am with you at last." 
 
 " ShamuSy aroon, avick ma chree, ivuil thu Ihum f wuil thu 
 wuil thu Ihumf Jemmy, my beloved, son of my heart, are 
 you with me ? are you are you with me ? " 
 
 " Ish maheen a tha in, a vair dheelish machree, It is / who 
 am with you, beloved mother of my heart 1 " 
 
 She smiled again, but only for a moment. She looked at 
 him, laid his head upon her bosom, bedewed his face with her 
 tears, and muttered out, in a kind of sweet, musical cadence, 
 the Irish cry of joy. 
 
 We are incapable of describing this scene further. Our 
 readers must be contented to know that the delight and 
 happiness of our hero's whole family were complete. Their 
 son, after many years of toil and struggle, had at length 
 succeeded, by a virtuous course of action, in raising them from 
 poverty to comfort, and in effecting his own object, which was 
 to become a member of the Catholic priesthood. During all 
 his trials he never failed to rely on God ; and it is seldom that 
 those who rely upon Him, when striving to attain a laudable 
 purpose, are ever ultimately disappointed. 
 
 We regret to inform our readers that the poor scholar is 
 dead I He did not, in fact, long survive the accomplishment of 
 his wishes. But as we had the particulars of his story from his 
 nearest friends, we thought his virtues of too exalted a nature 
 to pass into oblivion without some record, however humble. 
 He died as he had lived the friend of God and of man.
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 THE following story owes nothing to any colouring or inven- 
 tion of mine ; it is unhappily a true one, and to me possesses a 
 peculiar and melancholy interest, arising from my intimate 
 knowledge of the man whose fate it holds up as a moral 
 lesson to Irish landlords. I knew him well, and many a day 
 and hour have I played about his knee, and ran, in my boy- 
 hood, round his path, when, as he said himself, the world 
 was no trouble to him. 
 
 On the south side of a sloping tract of light ground, lively, 
 warm, and productive, stood a white, moderate-sized farm-house, 
 which, in consequence of its conspicuous situation, was a 
 prominent and, we may add, a graceful object in the landscape 
 of which it formed a part. The spot whereon it stood was a 
 swelling natural terrace, the soil of which was heavier and 
 richer than that of the adjoining lands. On each side of the 
 house stood a clump of old beeches, the only survivors of that 
 species then remaining in the country. These beeches extended 
 behind the house in a kind of angle, with opening enough at 
 their termination to form a vista, through which its white walls 
 glistened with beautiful effect in the calm splendour of a 
 summer evening. Above the mound on which it stood rose two 
 steep hills, overgrown with furze and fern, except on their tops, 
 which were clothed with purple heath; they were also covered 
 with patches of broom, and studded with grey rocks, which 
 sometimes rose singly or in larger masses, pointed or rounded 
 into curious and fantastic shapes. Exactly between these hills 
 the sun went down during the month of June, and nothing 
 could be in finer relief than the rocky and picturesque outlines 
 of their sides, as, crowned with thorns and clumps of wild ash, 
 they appeared to overhang the valley, whose green foliage was 
 gilded by the sunbeams, which lit up the scene into radiant 
 beauty. The bottom of this natural chasm, which opened 
 against the deep crimson of the evening sky, was nearly upon 
 a level with the house, and completely so with the beeches that 
 surrounded it. Brightly did the sinking sun fall upon their
 
 rr8 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 tops, whilst the neat white house below, in their quiet shadow, 
 sent up its wreath of smoke among their branches, itself an 
 emblem of contentment, industry, and innocence. It was, in 
 fact, a lovely situation ; perhaps the brighter to me that its 
 remembrance is associated with days of happiness and freedom 
 from the cares of a world which, like a distant mountain, 
 darkens as we approach it, and only exhausts us in struggling 
 to climb its rugged and barren paths. 
 
 There was to the south-west of this house another little hazel 
 glen, that ended in a precipice formed by a single rock some 
 thirty feet high, over which tumbled a crystal cascade into a 
 basin worn in its hard bed below. From this basin the stream 
 murmured away through the copse-wood, until it joined a 
 larger rivulet that passed, with many a winding, through a fine 
 extent of meadows adjoining it. Across the foot of this glen, 
 and past the door of the house we have described, ran a bridle- 
 road, from time immemorial, on which, as the traveller 
 ascended it towards the house, he appeared to track his way in 
 blood ; for a chalybeate spa arose at its head, oozing out of the 
 earth, and spread itself in a crimson stream over the path in 
 every spot whereon a footmark could be made. From this 
 circumstance it was called Tubber Derg, or the Red Well. In 
 the meadow where the glen terminated was another spring of 
 delicious crystal ; and clearly do I remember the ever-beaten 
 pathway that led to it through the grass, and up the green field 
 which rose in a gentle slope to the happy-looking house of 
 Owen M'Carthy, for so was the man called who resided under 
 its peaceful roof. 
 
 I will not crave your pardon, gentle reader, for dwelling 
 at such length upon a scene so dear to my heart as this, 
 because I write not now so much for your gratification as 
 my own. Many an eve of gentle May have I pulled the 
 Maygowans which grew about that well and over that smooth 
 meadow Often have I raised my voice to its shrillest pitch 
 that I might hear its echoes rebounding in the bottom of 
 the green and still glen, where silence, so to speak, was 
 deepened by the continuous murmur of the cascade above ; 
 and when the cuckoo uttered her first note from among 
 the hawthorns on its side, with what trembling anxiety did I, 
 an urchin of some eight or nine years, look under my right 
 foot for the white hair, whose charm was such that, by keeping 
 it about me, the first female name I should hear was destined, 
 I believed in my soul, to be that of my future wife. Sweet was 
 the song of the thrush, and mellow the whistle of the blackbird,
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 119 
 
 as they rose in the stillness of evening over the " birken 
 shaws " and green dells of this secluded spot of rural beauty. 
 Far, too, could the rich voice of Owen M'Carthy be heard 
 along the hills and meadows, as, with a little chubby urchin 
 at his knee and another in his arms, he sat on a bench 
 beside his own door, singing the "Trougha" in his native 
 Irish ; whilst Kathleen his wife, with her two maids, each 
 crooning a low song, sat before the door milking the cows, 
 whose sweet breath mingled its perfume with the warm 
 breeze of evening. 
 
 Owen M'Carthy was descended from a long line of honest 
 ancestors, whose names had never, within the memory of man, 
 been tarnished by the commission of a mean or disreputable 
 action. They were always a kind-hearted family, but stern and 
 proud in the common intercourse of life. They believed them- 
 selves to be, and probably were, a branch of the MacCarthy- 
 More stock ; and although only the possessors of a small farm, 
 it was singular to observe the effect which this conviction 
 produced upon their bearing and manners. To it might, 
 perhaps, be attributed the high and stoical integrity for 
 which they were remarkable. This severity, however, was no 
 proof that they wanted feeling, or were insensible to the 
 misery and sorrows of others : in all the little cares and per- 
 plexities which chequered the peaceful neighbourhood in which 
 they lived they were ever the first to console, or, if necessary, 
 to support a distressed neighbour with the means which God 
 had placed in their possession ; for, being industrious, they 
 were seldom poor. Their words were few but sincere, and 
 generally promised less than the honest hearts that dictated 
 them intended to perform. There is in some persons an 
 hereditary feeling of just principle, the result neither of 
 education nor of a clear moral sense, but rather a kind of 
 instinctive honesty, which descends, like a constitutional bias, 
 from father to son, pervading every member of the family. 
 It is difficult to define this, or to assign its due position 
 in the scale of human virtues. It exists in the midst of 
 the grossest ignorance, and influences the character in the 
 absence of better principles. Such was the impress which 
 marked so strongly the family of which I speak. No one 
 would ever think of imputing a dishonest act to the M'Carthys ; 
 nor would any person acquainted with them hesitate for a 
 moment to consider their word as good as the bond of another. 
 I do not mean to say, however, that their motives of action 
 were not higher than this instinctive honesty ; far from it : but
 
 120 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 I say that they possessed it in addition to a strong feeling of 
 family pride and a correct knowledge of their moral duties. 
 
 I can only take up Owen M'Carthy at that part of the past to 
 which my memory extends. He was then a tall, fine-looking 
 young man ; silent, but kind. One of the earliest events within 
 my recollection is his wedding ; after that the glimpses of his 
 state and circumstances are imperfect ; but as I grew up they 
 became more connected, and I am able to remember him the 
 father of four children ; an industrious, inoffensive small farmer, 
 beloved, respected, and honoured. No man could rise, be it 
 ever so early, who would not find Owen up before him; no man 
 could anticipate him in an early crop ; and if a widow or a sick 
 acquaintance were unable to get in their harvest, Owen was 
 certain to collect the neighbours to assist them, to be the first 
 there himself, with quiet benevolence, encouraging them to a 
 zealous performance of the friendly task in which they were 
 engaged. 
 
 It was, I believe, soon after his marriage that the lease of 
 the farm held by him expired. Until that time he had been 
 able to live with perfect independence ; but even the enormous 
 rise of one pound per acre, though it deprived him in a great 
 degree of his usual comforts, did not sink him below the bare 
 necessaries of life. For some years after that he could still 
 serve a deserving neighbour ; and never was the hand of Owen 
 M'Carthy held back from the wants and distresses of those 
 whom he knew to be honest. 
 
 1 remember once an occasion upon which a widow Murray 
 applied to him for a loan of five pounds to prevent her two cows 
 from being auctioned for half a year's rent, of which she only 
 wanted that sum. Owen sat at dinner with his family when 
 she entered the house in tears, and, as well as her agitation 
 of mind permftted, gave him a detailed account of her em- 
 barrassment. 
 
 " The blessin' o' God be upon all here," said she, on 
 entering. 
 
 " The double o' that to you, Rosha," replied Owen's wife ; 
 "won't you sit in an' be atin'? Here's a sate beside Nanny; 
 come over, Rosha." 
 
 Owen only nodded to her, and continued to eat his dinner, as 
 if he felt no interest in her distress. Rosha sat down at a 
 distance, and, with the corner of a red handkerchief to her 
 eyes, shed tears in that bitterness of feeling which marks 
 the helplessness of honest industry under the pressure of 
 calamity
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 121 
 
 " In the name o' goodness, Rosha," said Mrs. M'Carthy, 
 " what ails you, asthore? Sure Jimmy God spare him to you 
 wouldn't be dead ?" 
 
 " Glory be to God t no, avourneen machree. Och, och ! but 
 it ud be the black sight, an' the black day, that ud see my brave 
 boy, the staff of our support, an' the bread of our mouth, taken 
 away from us. No, no, Kathleen, dear, it's not that bad wid me 
 yet. I hope we'll never live to see his manly head laid down 
 before us. 'Twas his own manliness, indeed, brought it an him 
 backin' the sack when he was bringin' home our last meldhre 
 from the mill ; for, you see, he should do it, the crathur, to show 
 his strinth, an' the sack when he got in an was too heavy for 
 him, an' hurted the small of his back for his bones, you see, 
 are too young, an' hadn't time to fill up yet. No, avourneen. 
 Glory be to God ! he's gettin' betther wid me ! " and the poor 
 creature's eyes glistened with delight through her tears and the 
 darkness of her affliction. 
 
 Without saying a word, Owen, when she had finished the 
 eulogium on her son, rose, and taking her forcibly by the 
 shoulder, set her down at the table, on which a large pot full of 
 potatoes had been spread out, with a circle in the middle for a 
 dish of rashers and eggs, into which dish every right hand of 
 those about it was thrust, with a quickness that clearly illustrated 
 the principle of competition as a stimulus to action. 
 
 " Spare your breath," said Owen, placing her rather roughly 
 upon the seat, "an" take share of what's goin' ; when all's 
 cleared off we'll hear you, but the sorra word till then." 
 
 " Musha, Owen," said the poor woman, "you're the same man 
 still ; sure we all know your ways ; I'll strive, avourneen, to 
 ate I'll strive, asthore to plase you, an' the Lord bless you 
 an' yours, an' may you never be as I an' my fatherless childhre 
 are this sorrowful day 1" and she accompanied her words by a 
 flood of tears. 
 
 Owen, without evincing the slightest sympathy, withdrew 
 himself from the table. Not a muscle of his face was moved ; 
 but as the cat came about his feet at the time, he put his foot 
 under her, and flung her as easily as possible to the lower end 
 of the kitchen. 
 
 "Arrah, what harm did the crathur do," asked his wife, 
 "that you'd kick her for that way? an' why but you ate out 
 your dinner?" 
 
 "I'm done," he replied, rather gruffly, "but that's no rason 
 that Rosha, an' you, an' thim boys that has the work afore 
 them shouldn't finish your male's mate."
 
 122 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 Poor Rosha thought that by his withdrawing he had already 
 suspected the object of her visit, and of course concluded that 
 her chance of succeeding was very slender. 
 
 The wife, who guessed what she wanted, as well as the nature 
 of her suspicion, being herself as affectionate and obliging as 
 Owen, reverted to the subject in order to give her an oppor- 
 tunity of proceeding. 
 
 " Somethin' bitther an' out o' the common coorse is a throuble 
 to you, Rosha," said she, "or you wouldn't be in the state you're 
 in. The Lord look down on you this day, you poor crathur 
 widout the father of your childhre to stand up for you, an' your 
 only other depindence laid on the broad of his back, all as one 
 as a cripple ; but no matther, Rosha ; trust to Him that can be 
 a husband to you, an' a father to your orphans trust to Him, 
 an' his blessed mother in heaven, this day, an' never fear but 
 they'll rise up a frind for you. Musha, Owen, ate your dinner 
 as you ought to do, wid your capers ! How can you take a 
 spade in your hand upon that morsel ?" 
 
 " Finish your own," said her husband, " an' never heed me ; 
 jist let me alone. Don't you see that if I wanted it I'd ate it, 
 an' what more would you have about it ?" 
 
 " Well, acushla, it's your own loss, sure, of a sartinty. An', 
 Rosha, whisper, ahagur what can Owen or I do for you ? 
 Throth, it would be a bad day we'd see you at a deshort for 
 a frind, for you never wor nothin' else nor a civil, oblagin' 
 neighbour yourself; an' him that's gone before the Lord make 
 his bed in heaven this day was as good a warrant as ever 
 broke bread to sarve a frind, if it was at the hour of midnight." 
 
 " Ah 1 when I had him" exclaimed the distracted widow, 
 " I never had occasion to throuble aither frind or neighbour ; 
 but he's gone, an' now it's otherwise wid me glory be to God 
 for all his mercies a wurrah dheelish ! Why, thin, since I 
 must spake, an' has no other frind to go to but somehow I 
 doubt Owen looks dark upon me sure I'd put my hand to a 
 stamp, if my word wouldn't do for it, an' sign the blessed crass 
 that saved us, for the payment of it ; or I'd give it to him in 
 oats, for I hear you want some, Owen phatie oats it is, and a 
 betther shouldhered or fuller-lookin' grain never went undher a 
 harrow indeed, it's it that's the beauty, all out, if it's good seed 
 you want." 
 
 " What is it for, woman alive ? " inquired Owen, as he kicked 
 a three-legged stool out of his way. 
 
 " What is it for, is it ? Och, Owen, darlin', sure my two brave 
 cows is lavin' me. Paddy Dannellan, the driver, is over wid me
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 123 
 
 beyant, an' has them ready to set off wid. I reared them both, 
 the two of them, wid my own hands ; Cheehoney, that knows 
 my voice, an' would come to me from the fardest corner o' the 
 field, is goin', and nothin' will we have nothin' will my poor 
 sick boy have but the black wather, or the dhry salt ; besides 
 the butther of them bein' lost to us for the rent, or a small taste 
 of it, of an odd time, for poor Jimmy; Owen, next to God, I 
 have no frind to depind upon but yourself ! " 
 
 "Me!" said Owen, as if astonished. " Phoo, that's quare 
 enough ! Now do you think, Rosha hut, hut, woman alive 1 
 Come, boys, you're all done ; out wid yees to your spades, an' 
 finish that meerin before night. Me ! hut, hut !" 
 
 " I have it all but five pounds, Owen, an' for the sake of him 
 that's in his grave an' that maybe is able to put up his prayer 
 for you :> 
 
 " An' what would you want me to do, Rosha ? Fitther for 
 you to sit down an' finish your dinner, when it's before you. 
 I'm goin' to get an ould glove 1 that's somewhere about this 
 chist, for I must weed out that bit of oats before night, wid a 
 blessin';" and as he spoke he passed into another room, as if 
 he had altogether forgotten her solicitation, and in a few 
 minutes returned. 
 
 " Owen, avick ! an' the blessin' of the fatherless be upon 
 you, sure an' many a one o' them you have, anyhow, Owen ! " 
 
 " Well, Rosha, well ? " 
 
 " Och, och, Owen, it's low days wid me to be depindin' upon 
 the sthranger 1 Little thim that reared me ever thought it ud 
 come to this. You know I'm a dacent father's child, an' I have 
 stooped to you, Owen M'Carthy what I'd scorn to do to any 
 other but yourself poor an' frindless as I stand here before 
 you. Let thim take the cows, thin, from my childhre, but the 
 father of the fatherless will support thim an' me. Och, but it's 
 well for the O'Donohoes that their landlord lives at home 
 among themselves, for, may the heavens look down on me, I 
 wouldn't know where to find mine, if one sight of him ud save 
 me an' my childhre from the grave ! The agent, even he lives 
 in Dublin ; an' how could I lave my sick boy an' small girshas 
 by themselves to go a hundre' miles, an' maybe not see him 
 afther all ? Little hopes I'd have from him even if I did. He's 
 paid for gatherin' in his rents ; but it's well known he wants the 
 touch of nathur for the sufferin's of the poor, an' of them that's 
 honest in their intintions." 
 
 1 In " hand- weeding," old gloves are used to prevent the hands from 
 being injured by the thistles.
 
 124 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL, 
 
 " I'll go over wid you, Rosha, if that will be of any use," 
 replied Owen, composedly. ll Come, I'll go an' spake to dirty 
 Dannellan." 
 
 " The sorra blame I blame him, Owen," replied Rosha. 
 " His bread's depindin' upon the likes of sich doin's, an' 
 he can't get over it ; but a word from you, Owen, will 
 save me, for who ever refused to take the word of a 
 M'Carthy?" 
 
 When Owen and the widow arrived at the house of the latter 
 they found the situation of the bailiff laughable in the extreme. 
 Her eldest son, who had been confined to his bed by a hurt 
 received in his back, was up, and had got the unfortunate 
 driver, who was rather old, wedged in between the dresser and 
 the wall, where his cracked voice for he was asthmatic was 
 raised to the highest pitch, calling for assistance. Beside him 
 was a large tub half filled with water, into which the little ones 
 were emptying small jugs, carried at the top of their speed 
 from a puddle before the door. In the meantime Jemmy was 
 tugging at the bailiff with all his strength fortunately for that 
 personage it was but little with the most sincere intention of 
 inverting him into the tub, which contained as much muddy 
 water as would have been sufficient to make him a subject for 
 the deliberation of a coroner and twelve honest men. Nothing 
 could be more conscientiously attempted than the task which 
 Jemmy had proposed to execute ; every tug brought out his 
 utmost strength, and when he failed in pulling down the bailiff, 
 he compensated himself for his want of success by cuffing his 
 ribs and peeling his shins by hard kicks ; whilst from those 
 open points which the driver's grapple with his man naturally 
 exposed were inflicted on him by the rejoicing urchins number- 
 less punches of tongs, potato-washers, and sticks whose points 
 were from time to time hastily thrust into the coals, that they 
 might more effectually either blind or disable him in some 
 other manner. 
 
 As one of the little ones ran out to fill his jug he spied his 
 mother and Owen approaching, on which, with the empty 
 vessel in his hand, he flew towards them, his little features 
 distorted by glee and ferocity wildly mixed up together. 
 
 " Oh, mudher, mudher ha, ha, ha ! don't come in yet ; 
 don't come in, Owen, till Jimmy, an' huz, an' the Denises, gets 
 the bailey drownded. We'll soon have the bat 1 full ; but Paddy 
 an' Jack Denis have the eyes a'most pucked out of him ; an' 
 
 1 A tub.
 
 TUB BE R DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 125 
 
 Katty's takin' the hook from behind the cuppelio get it about 
 his neck." 
 
 Owen and the widow entered with all haste, precisely at the 
 moment when Dannellan's head was dipped for the first time 
 into the vessel. 
 
 "Is it goin' to murdher him yees are?" said Owen, as he 
 seized Jemmy with a grasp that transferred him to the opposite 
 end of the house. " Hould back, ye pack of young divils, an' 
 let the man up. What did he come to do but his duty ? I tell 
 you, Jimmy, if you wor at yourself, an' in full strinth, that you'd 
 have the man's blood on you where you stand, and would suffer 
 as you ought to do for it." 
 
 " There, let me," replied the lad, his eyes glowing and his 
 veins swollen with passion ; " I don't care if I did. It would be 
 no sin, an' no disgrace, to hang for the like of him ; dacenter 
 to do that than stale a creel of turf, or a wisp of straw, 'tanny 
 rate." 
 
 In the meantime the bailiff had raised his head out of the 
 water, and presented a visage which it was impossible to view 
 with gravity. The widow's anxiety prevented her from seeing 
 it in a ludicrous light ; but Owen's severe face assumed a 
 grave smile as the man shook himself and attempted to com- 
 prehend the nature of his situation. The young urchins, who 
 had fallen back at the appearance of Owen and the widow, now 
 burst into a peal of mirth, in which, however, Jemmy, whose 
 fiercer passions had been roused, did not join. 
 
 " Paddy Uannellan," said the widow, " I take the mother of 
 heaven to witness that it vexes my heart to see you get sich 
 thratement in my place ; an' I wouldn't for the best cow in my 
 byre that sich a brieuliagh happened. Dher charp agus 
 manim? Jimmy, but I'll make you suffer for drawin' down this 
 upon my head, an' me had enough over it afore." 
 
 " I don't care," replied Jemmy ; " whoever comes to take our 
 property from us, an' us willin' to work, will suffer for it. Do 
 you think I'd see thim crathurs at their dhry phatie, an' our cows 
 standin' in a pound for no rason ? No ; high hangin' to me, 
 but I'll split to the skull the first man that takes them ; an" all 
 I'm sorry for is that it's not the vagabone landlord himself that's 
 near me. That's our thanks for payin' many a good pound in 
 honesty an' dacency to him an' his ; lavin' us to a schamin' agent, 
 an' not even to that same, but to his undher-strappers, that's 
 robbin' us on both sides between them. May hard fortune 
 
 1 By my soul and body.
 
 126 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 attind him for a landlord ! You may tell him this, Dannellan 
 that his wisest plan is to keep clear of the counthry. Sure it's a 
 gambler he is, they say, an' we must be harrished an' racked to 
 support his villainy. But wait a bit ; maybe there's a good time 
 comin', when we'll pay our money to thim that won't be too 
 proud to hear our complaints wid their own ears, an* who won't 
 turn us over to a divil's limb of an agent. He had need, anyhow, 
 to get his coffin sooner nor he thinks. What signifies hangin' in 
 a good cause?" said he, as the tears of keen indignation burst 
 from his glowing eyes. "It's adacent death, an' a happy death, 
 when it's for the right," he added for his mind was evidently 
 fixed upon the contemplation of those means of redress which 
 the habits of the country and the prejudices of the people present 
 to them in the first moments of passion. 
 
 " It's well that Dannellan's one of ourselves," replied Owen 
 coolly, "otherwise, Jimmy, you said words that would lay you 
 up by the heels. As for you, Dannellan, you must look over 
 this. The boy's the son of dacent poor parents, an' it's a new 
 thing for him to see the cows druv from the place. The poor 
 fellow's vexed, too, that he has been so long laid up wid a sore 
 back ; an' so, you see, one thing or another has put him through 
 other. Jimmy is warm-hearted afther all, an' will be sorry for 
 it when he cools, an' remimbers that you wor only doin" your 
 duty." 
 
 " But what am I to do about the cows ? Sure I can't go back 
 widout either thim or the rint 1 " said Paddy, with a look of fear 
 and trembling at Jemmy. 
 
 " The cows ! " said another of the widow's sons, who then 
 came in ; " why, you dirty spalpeen of a rip, you may whistle on 
 the wrong side o' your mouth for them. I druv them off of the 
 estate ; an' now take them, if you dar ; it's conthrairy to law," 
 said the urchin, " an' if you'd touch them, I'd make my mudher 
 sarve you wid a lattitat or & fiery-flashes." 
 
 This was a triumph to the youngsters, who began to shake 
 their little fists at him, and to exclaim in a chorus, " Ha, you 
 dirty rip ! wait till we get you out o' the house, an' if we don't 
 put you from ever drivin' 1 Why but you work like another? 
 ha, you'll get it 1 " and every little fist was shook in vengeance 
 at him. 
 
 " Whisht wid yees," said Jemmy to the little ones. " Let him 
 alone ; he got enough. There's the cows for you ; an' keen may 
 the curse o' the widow an' orphans light upon you, an' upon 
 them that sent you, from first to last ! an' that's the best we 
 wish you 1 "
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 127 
 
 " Paddy," said Owen to the bailiff, " is there any one in the 
 town below that will take the rint, an' give a resate for it ? Do 
 you think, man, that the neighbours of an honest, industrious 
 woman ud see the cattle taken out of her byre for a thrifle ? 
 Hut, tut ! no, man alive no sich thing 1 There's not a man in 
 the parish, wid manes to do it, would see them taken away 
 to be canted at only about a fourth part of their value. Hut, 
 tut no ! " 
 
 As the sterling fellow spoke the cheeks of the widow were 
 suffused with tears, and her son Jemmy's hollow eyes once more 
 kindled, but with a far different expression from that which but 
 a few minutes before flashed from them. 
 
 " Owen," said he, and utterance nearly failed him " Owen, if 
 / was well, it wouldn't be as it is wid us ; but no, indeed, it 
 would not ; but may God bless you for this ! Owen, never 
 fear but you'll be paid ; may God bless you, Owen ! " 
 
 As he spoke the hand of his humble benefactor was warmly 
 grasped in his. A tear fell upon it ; for, with one of those quick 
 and fervid transitions of feeling so peculiar to the people, he 
 now felt a strong, generous emotion of gratitude, mingled 
 perhaps with a sense of wounded pride on finding the poverty 
 of their little family so openly exposed. 
 
 " Hut, tut, Jimmy, avick," said Owen, who understood his 
 feelings; "phoo, man alive ! hut hem ! Why, sure it'snothin' 
 at all, at all ; anybody would do it only a bare five-an'-twenty 
 shillin's [it was five pounds] any neighbour Mick Cassidy, 
 Jack Moran, or Pether M'Cullagh would do it. Come, Paddy, 
 step out ; the money's to the fore. Rosha, put your cloak about 
 you, and let us go down to the agint or clerk, or whatsomever 
 he is sure that makes no maxim anyhow I suppose he has 
 power to give a resate. Jimmy, go to bed again you're pale, 
 poor bouchal ; and childhre, ye crathurs, ye, the cows won't be 
 taken from yees this bout. Come, in the name of God, let us go 
 and see everything rightified at once hut, tut come." 
 
 Many similar details of Owen M'Carthy's useful life could be 
 given, in which he bore an equally benevolent and Christian 
 part. Poor fellow ! he was ere long brought low ; but to the 
 credit of our peasantry, much as is said about their barbarity, he 
 was treated, when helpless, with gratitude, pity, and kindness. 
 
 Until the peace of 1814 Owen's regular and systematic industry 
 enabled him to struggle successfully against a weighty rent and 
 sudden depression in the price of agricultural produce ; that is, 
 he was able, by the unremitting toil of a man remarkable alike 
 for an unbending spirit and a vigorous frame of body, to pay
 
 128 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 his rent with tolerable regularity. It is true a change began 
 to be visible in his personal appearance, in his farm, in the 
 dress of his children, and in the economy of his household. 
 Improvements, which adequate capital would have enabled him 
 to effect, were left either altogether unattempted, or in an 
 imperfect state resembling neglect, though in reality the result 
 of poverty. His dress at mass, and in fairs and markets, had 
 by degrees lost that air of comfort and warmth which bespeaks 
 the independent farmer. The evidences of embarrassment 
 began to disclose themselves in many small points, inconsider- 
 able it is true, but not the less significant. His house, in the 
 progress of his declining circumstances, ceased to be annually 
 ornamented by a new coat of whitewash; it soon assumed a 
 faded and yellowish hue, and sparkled not in the setting sun as 
 in the days of Owen's prosperity. It had, in fact, a wasted, 
 unthriving look, like its master; the thatch became black and 
 rotten upon its roof, the chimneys sloped to opposite points, the 
 windows were less neat, and ultimately, when broken, were 
 patched with a couple of leaves from the children's blotted copy- 
 books. His outhouses also began to fail; the neatness of his 
 little farmyard, and the cleanliness which marked so conspicu- 
 ously the space fronting his dwelling-house, disappeared in the 
 course of time. Filth began to accumulate where no filth had 
 been; his garden was not now planted so early, nor with such 
 taste and neatness as before; his crops were later and less 
 abundant; his haggards neither so full nor so trim as they were 
 wont to be, nor his ditches and enclosures kept in such good 
 repair. His cars, ploughs, and other farming implements, 
 instead of being put under cover, were left exposed to the 
 influence of wind and weather, where they soon became crazy 
 and useless. 
 
 Such, however, were only the slighter symptoms of his boot- 
 less struggle against the general embarrassment into which the 
 agricultural interests were, year after year, so unhappily sinking. 
 
 Had the tendency to general distress among the class to 
 which he belonged become stationary, Owen would have con- 
 tinued by toil and incessant exertion to maintain his ground ; 
 but, unfortunately, there was no point at which the national 
 depression could then stop. Year after year produced deeper, 
 more extensive, and more complicated misery; and when he 
 hoped that every succeeding season would bring an improve- 
 ment in the market, he was destined to experience not merely a 
 fresh disappointment, but an unexpected depreciation in the 
 price of his corn, butter, and other disposable commodities.
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 129 
 
 When a nation is reduced to such a state, no eye but that of 
 God himself can see the appalling wretchedness to which a 
 year of disease and scarcity strikes down the poor and working 
 classes. 
 
 Owen, after a long and noble contest for nearly three years, 
 sank at length under the united calamities of disease and 
 scarcity. The father of the family was laid low upon the bed 
 of sickness, and those of his little ones who escaped it were 
 almost consumed by famine. This twofold shock sealed his 
 ruin ; his honest heart was crushed his hardy frame shorn of 
 its strength, and he, to whom every neighbour fled as to a friend, 
 now required friendship at a moment when the wide-spread 
 poverty of the country rendered its assistance hopeless. 
 
 On rising from his bed of sickness the prospect before him 
 required his utmost fortitude to bear. He was now wasted in 
 energy both of mind and body, reduced to utter poverty, with a 
 large family of children too young to assist him, without means 
 of retrieving his circumstances, his wife and himself gaunt 
 skeletons, his farm neglected, his house wrecked, and his 
 offices falling to ruin, yet every day bringing the half-year's 
 term nearer ! Oh, ye who riot on the miseries of such men 
 ye who roll round the easy circle of fashionable life think upon 
 this picture 1 Ye vile and heartless landlords, who see not, 
 hear not, know not those to whose heart-breaking toil ye owe 
 the only merit ye possess that of rank in society come and 
 contemplate this virtuous man, as unfriended, unassisted, and 
 uncheered by those who are bound by a strong moral duty to 
 protect and aid him, he looks shuddering into the dark, cheer- 
 less future 1 Is it to be wondered at that he, and such as he, 
 should, in the misery of his despair, join the nightly meetings, 
 be lured to associate himself with the incendiary, or seduced to 
 grasp, in the stupid apathy of wretchedness, the weapon of the 
 murderer ? By neglecting the people, by draining them with 
 merciless rapacity of the means of life, by goading them on 
 under a cruel system of rack rents, ye become not their natural 
 benefactors, but curses and scourges, nearly as much in reality 
 as ye are in their opinion. 
 
 When Owen rose he was driven by hunger, direct and im- 
 mediate, to sell his best cow; and having purchased some oat- 
 meal, at an enormous price, from a well-known devotee in the 
 parish, who hoarded up this commodity for a " dear summer," 
 he laid his plans for the future with as much judgment as any 
 man could display. One morning after breakfast he addressed 
 his wife as follows :
 
 130 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL, 
 
 " Kathleen, mavourneen, I want to consult wid you about 
 what we ought to do; things are low wid us, asthore ; and 
 except our heavenly Father puts it into the heart of them I'm 
 goin' to mention, I don't know what we'll do, nor what'll 
 become of these poor crathurs that's naked and hungry about 
 us. God pity them, they don't know and maybe that same's 
 some comfort the hardships that's before them. Poor crathurs, 
 see how quiet and sorrowful they sit about their little play, pas- 
 sin' the time for themselves as well as they can ! Alley, acushla 
 machree, come over to me. Your hair is bright and fair, Alley, 
 and curls so purtily that the finest lady in the land might envy 
 it, but, acushla, your colour's gone, your little hands are wasted 
 away too; that sickness was hard and sore upon you, a colleen 
 machree, and he that ud spend his heart's blood for you, darlin', 
 can do nothin' to help you 1 " 
 
 He looked at the child as he spoke, and a slight motion in 
 the muscles of his face was barely perceptible, but it passed 
 away; and, after kissing her, he proceeded : 
 
 " Ay, ye crathurs you and I, Kathleen, could earn our 
 bread for ourselves yet, but these can't do it. This last stroke, 
 darlin', has laid us at the door of both poverty and sickness, 
 but, blessed be the mother of heaven for it, they are all left wid 
 us; and sure that's a blessin' we've to be thankful for glory be 
 to God 1 " 
 
 "Ay, poor things, it's well to have them spared, Owen, dear ; 
 sure I'd rather a thousand times beg from door to door, and 
 have my childhre to look at, than be in comfort widout them." 
 
 "Beg that ud go hard wid me, Kathleen. I'd work I'd 
 live on next to nothing all the year round but to see the 
 crathurs that wor dacently bred up brought to that I couldn't 
 bear it, Kathleen 'twould break the heart widin me. Poor as 
 they are, they have the blood of kings in their veins ; and 
 besides, to see a M'Carthy beggin' his bread in the counthry 
 where his name was once great. The M'Carthy More, that was 
 their title. No, acushla ; I love them as I do the blood in my 
 own veins ; but I'd rather see them in the arms of God in 
 heaven, laid down dacently, with their little sorrowful faces 
 washed, and their little bodies stretched out purtily before my 
 eyes I would in the graveyard there beyant, where all 
 belongin' to me lie, than have it cast up to them, or have it 
 said that ever a M'Carthy was seen beggin' on the highway." 
 
 " But, Owen, can you strike out no plan for us that ud put us 
 in the way of comin' round agin ? These poor ones, if we could 
 hould out for two or three year, would soon be able to help us."
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 131 
 
 " They would they would. I'm thinkin' this day or two of a 
 plan, but I'm doubtful whether it ud come to anything." 
 
 " What is it, acushla ? Sure we can't be worse nor we are, 
 anyway." 
 
 " I'm goin' to go to Dublin. I'm tould that the landlord's 
 come home from France, and that he's there now ; and if I 
 didn't see him, sure I could see the agent. Now, Kathleen, 
 my intintion ud be to lay our case before the head landlord 
 himself, in hopes he might hould back his hand, and spare us 
 for a while. If I had a line from the agent, or a scrape of a pen 
 that I could show at home to some of the nabours, who knows 
 but I could borry what ud set us up agin ! I think many of 
 them ud be sorry to see me turned out ; eh, Kathleen ? " 
 
 The Irish are an imaginative people ; indeed, too much so 
 for either their individual or national happiness. And it is this 
 and superstition, which also depends much upon imagination, 
 that makes them so easily influenced by those extravagant 
 dreams that are held out to them by persons who understand 
 their character. 
 
 When Kathleen heard the plan on which Owen founded his 
 expectations of assistance, her dark, melancholy eye flashed 
 with a portion of its former fire ; a transient vivacity lit up her 
 sickly features, and she turned a smile of hope and affection 
 upon her children, then upon Owen. 
 
 " Arrah, thin, who knows, indeed ! who knows but he might 
 do something for us 1 And maybe we might be as well as ever 
 yet ! May the Lord put it into his heart this day ! I declare, 
 ay ! maybe it was God put it into your heart, Owen ! " 
 
 " I'll set off," replied her husband, who was a man of decision 
 " I'll set off on other morrow mornin'; and as nobody knows 
 anything about it, so let there not be a word said upon the 
 subject, good or bad. If I have success, well and good ; but if 
 not, why nobody need be the wiser." 
 
 The heart-broken wife evinced, for the remainder of the day, 
 a lightness of spirits which she had not felt for many a month 
 before. Even Owen was less depressed than usual, and em- 
 ployed himself in making such arrangements as he knew would 
 occasion his family to feel the inconvenience of his absence 
 less acutely. But as the hour of his departure drew nigh a 
 sorrowful feeling of affection, rising into greater strength and 
 tenderness, threw a melancholy gloom around his hearth. 
 According to their simple view of distance, a journey to Dublin 
 was a serious undertaking, and to them it was such. Owen 
 was in weak health, just risen out of illness, and what was
 
 132 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 more trying than any other consideration was that since their 
 marriage they had never been separated before. 
 
 On the morning of his departure he was up before daybreak, 
 and so were his wife and children, for the latter had heard the 
 conversation already detailed between them, and, with their 
 simple-minded parents, enjoyed the gleam of hope which it pre- 
 sented ; but this soon changed when he was preparing to go an 
 indefinite sense of fear, and a more vivid clinging of affection, 
 marked their feelings. He himself partook of this, and was 
 silent, depressed, and less ardent than when the speculation 
 first presented itself to his mind. His resolution, however, was 
 taken, and should he fail, no blame at a future time could be 
 attached to himself. It was the last effort ; and to neglect it, he 
 thought, would have been'to neglect his duty. When breaklast 
 was ready they all sat down in silence ; the hour was yet early, 
 and a rushlight was placed in a wooden candlestick that stood 
 beside them to afford light. There was something solemn and 
 touching in the group as they sat in dim relief, every face 
 marked by the traces of sickness, want, sorrow, and affection. 
 The father attempted to eat, but he could not ; Kathleen sat at 
 the meal, but could taste nothing ; the children ate, for hunger 
 at the moment was predominant over every other sensation. 
 At length it was over, and Owen rose to depart ; he stood for a 
 minute on the floor, and seemed to take a survey of his cold, 
 cheerless house, and then of his family ; he cleared his throat 
 several times, but did not speak. 
 
 " Kathleen," said he, at length, " in the name of God, I'll go ; 
 and may his blessin' be about you, asthore machree, and guard 
 you and these darlin's till I come back to yees." 
 
 Kathleen's faithful heart could bear no more ; she laid herself 
 on his bosom clung to his neck and, as the parting kiss was 
 given, she wept aloud, and Owen's tears fell silently down his 
 worn cheeks. The children crowded about them in loud 
 wailings, and the grief of this virtuous and afflicted family was 
 of that profound description which is ever the companion, in 
 such scenes, of pure and genuine love. 
 
 " Owen ! " she exclaimed " Owen, a-sitilish mahuil agus 
 machree 7 1 I doubt we wor wrong in thinkin' of this journey. 
 How can you, mavourneen, walk all the way to Dublin, and 
 you so worn and weakly wid that sickness, and the bad feedin' 
 both before and since ? Och, give it up, achree, and stay wid 
 us let what will happen. You're not able for sich a journey, 
 
 1 Light of my eyes and of my heart.
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 133 
 
 indeed, you're not. Stay wid me and the childhre, Owen ; sure 
 we'd be so lonesome widout you will you, agrah ? and the Lord 
 will do for us some other way, maybe." 
 
 Owen pressed his faithful wife to his heart, and kissed her 
 chaste lips with a tenderness which the heartless votaries of 
 fashionable life can never know. 
 
 " Kathleen, asthore," he replied, in those terms of endear- 
 ment which flow so tenderly through the language of the 
 people " sure whin I remimber your fair young face your 
 yellow hair, and the light that was in your eyes, acushla 
 machree but that's gone long ago och, don't ax me to stop ! 
 Isn't your lightsome laugh, whin you wor young, in my ears ? 
 and your step that ud not bend the flower of the field 
 Kathleen, I can't, indeed I can't, bear to think of what you wor, 
 nor of what you are now, when, in the coorse of age and natur, 
 but a small change ought to be upon you ! Sure I ought to 
 make every struggle to take you and these sorrowful crathurs 
 out of the state you're in." 
 
 The children flocked about them, and joined their entreaties 
 to those of their mother. "Father, don't lave us we'll be 
 lonesome if you go ; and if my mother ud get unwell, who'd be 
 to take care of her ? Father, don't lave your own ' weeny 
 crathurs ' (a pet name he had for them) maybe the meal ud 
 be eat out before you'd come back ; or maybe something 
 ud happen you in that strange place." 
 
 " Indeed, there's truth in what they say, Owen," said the 
 wife ; " do be said by your own Kathleen for this time, and 
 don't take sich a long journey upon you. Afther all, maybe, 
 you wouldn't see him sure the nabours will help us, if you 
 could only humble yourself to ax them ! " 
 
 " Kathleen," said Owen, " when this is past you'll be glad I 
 went indeed you will ; sure it's only the tindher feelin' of 
 your hearts, darlin's. Who knows what the landlord may do 
 when I see himself, and show him these resales every penny 
 paid him by our own family. Let me go, acushla ; it does cut 
 me to the heart to lave yees the way yees are in, even for a 
 while ; but it's far worse to see your poor wasted faces, widout 
 havin' it in my power to do anything for yees." 
 
 He then kissed them again one by one, and pressing the 
 affectionate partner of his sorrows to his breaking heart, he 
 bade God bless them, and set out in the twilight of a bitter 
 March morning. He had not gone many yards from the door 
 when little Alley ran after him in tears ; he felt her hand upon 
 the skirts ' of his coat, which she plucked with a smile of
 
 134 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 affection that neither tears nor sorrow could repress. " Father, 
 kiss me again," said she. He stooped down and kissed her 
 tenderly. The child then ascended a green ditch, and Owen, 
 as he looked back, saw her standing upon it ; her fair tresses 
 were tossed by the blast about her face, as with straining eyes 
 she watched him receding from her view. Kathleen and the 
 other children stood at the door, and also with deep sorrow 
 watched his form, until the angle of the bridle-road rendered 
 him no longer visible ; after which they returned slowly to the 
 fire and wept bitterly. 
 
 We believe no men are capable of bearing greater toil or 
 privation than the Irish. Owen's viaticum was only two or 
 three oaten cakes tied in a little handkerchief, and a few shillings 
 in silver to pay for his bed. With this small stock of food and 
 money, an oaken stick in his hand, and his wife's kerchief tied 
 about his waist, he undertook a journey of one hundred and 
 eighty miles in quest of a landlord who, so far from being 
 acquainted with the distresses of his tenantry, scarcely knew 
 even their names, and not one of them in person. 
 
 Our scene now changes to the metropolis. One evening, 
 about half-past six o'clock, a toil-worn man turned his steps to 
 a splendid mansion in Mountjoy Square ; his appearance was 
 drooping, fatigued, and feeble. As he went along he examined 
 the numbers on the respective doors, until he reached one 
 before which he stopped for a moment ; he then stepped out 
 upon the street, and looked through the windows, as if willing 
 to ascertain whether there was any chance of his object being 
 attained. Whilst in this situation a carriage rolled rapidly up, 
 and stopped with a sudden check that nearly threw the horses 
 on their haunches. In an instant the thundering knock of the 
 servant intimated the arrival of some person of rank ; the hall- 
 door was opened, and Owen, availing himself of that oppor- 
 tunity, entered the hall. Such a visitor, however, was too 
 remarkable to escape notice. The hand of the menial was 
 rudely placed against his breast, and as the usual impertinent 
 interrogatories were put to him, the pampered ruffian kept 
 pushing him back, until the afflicted man stood upon the upper 
 step leading to the door. 
 
 "For the sake of God, let me spake but two words to him. 
 I'm his tenant ; and I know he's too much of a gintleman to 
 turn away a man that has lived upon his honour's estate 
 father and son for upwards of two hundre years. My name's 
 Owen " 
 
 " You can't see him, my good fellow, at this hour. Go to
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 135 
 
 Mr. M , his agent ; we have company to dinner. He never 
 
 speaks to a tenant on business ; his agent manages all that 
 Please leave the way ; here's more company." 
 
 As he uttered the last word he pushed Owen back, who, 
 forgetting that the stairs were behind him, fell, received a 
 severe cut, and was so completely stunned that he lay senseless 
 and bleeding. Another carriage drove up, as the fellow, now 
 much alarmed, attempted to raise him from the steps, and by 
 order of the gentleman who came in it, he was brought into 
 the hall. The circumstance now made some noise. It was 
 
 whispered about that one of Mr. 's tenants, a drunken 
 
 fellow from the country, wanted to break in forcibly to see him ; 
 but then it was also asserted that his skull was broken, and that 
 he lay dead in the hall. Several of the gentlemen above stairs, 
 on hearing that a man had been killed, immediately assembled 
 about him, and by the means of restoratives he soon recovered, 
 though the blood streamed copiously from the wound in the 
 back of his head. 
 
 " Who are you, my good man? " said Mr. S . 
 
 Owen looked about him rather vacantly, but soon collected 
 himself, and replied in a mournful and touqhing tone of voice, 
 " I'm one of your honour's tenants from Tubber Derg. My 
 name is Owen M'Carthy, your honour that is, if you be 
 Mr. ." 
 
 "And pray what brought you to town, M'Carthy?" 
 
 " I wanted to make an humble appale to your honour's feelin's 
 in regard of my bit of farm. I and my poor family, your 
 honour, have been broken down by hard times and the sickness 
 of the sason God knows how they are." 
 
 " If you wish to speak to me about that, my good man, you 
 must know I refer all these matters to my agent go to him : 
 he knows them best ; and whatever is right and proper to be 
 done for you, he will do it. Sinclair, give him a crown, and 
 
 send him to the Dispensary to get his head dressed. I say, 
 
 Carthy, go to my agent ; he knows whether your claim is just 
 or not, and will attend to it accordingly." 
 
 " Plase your honour, I've been wid him, and he says he can 
 do nothin' whatsomever for me. I went two or three times, and 
 couldn't see him, he was so busy ; and when I did get a word 
 or two wid him, he tould me there was more offered for my land 
 than I'm payin 1 ; and that if I did not pay up, I must be put 
 out God help me 1 " 
 
 "But I tell you, Carthy, I never interfere between him and 
 my tenants."
 
 136 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 " Och, indeed, and it would be well both for your honour's 
 tenants and yourself if you did, sir. Your honour ought to 
 know, sir, more about us, and how we're thrated. I'm an honest 
 man, sir, and I tell you so for your good." 
 
 "And pray, sir,'' said the agent, stepping forward, for he had 
 arrived a few minutes before, and heard the last observation of 
 McCarthy " pray, how are they treated, you that know so well, 
 and are so honest a man ? As for honesty, you might have 
 referred to me for that, I think," he added. 
 
 " Mr. M ," said Owen, " we're thrated very badly. Sir, 
 
 you needn't look at me, for I'm not afeerd to spake the thruth ; 
 no bullyin', sir, will make me say anything in your favour that 
 you don't desarve. You've broken the half of them by severity; 
 you've turned the tenants aginst yourself and his honour here; 
 and I tell you now, though you're to the fore, that, in the coorse 
 of a short time, there'll be bad work upon the estate, except his 
 honour here looks into his own affairs, and hears the com- 
 plaints of the people. Look at these resales, yer honour, they'll 
 show you, sir " 
 
 " Carthy, I can hear no such language against the gentleman 
 to whom I entrust the management of my property ; of course 
 I refer the matter solely to him ; I can do nothing in it.'' 
 
 " Kathleen, avourneen ! " exclaimed the poor man, as he 
 looked up despairingly to heaven " and ye, poor darlin's of 
 my heart ! Is this the news I'm to have for yees whin I go 
 home ? As you hope for mercy, sir, don't turn away your ear 
 from my petition, that I'd humbly make to yourself. Cowld, and 
 hunger, and hardship are at home before me, yer honour. If 
 you'd be plased to look at these resales, you'd see that I always 
 paid my rent, and 'twas sickness and hard times " 
 
 "And your own honesty, industry, and good conduct," said the 
 agent, giving a dark and malignant sneer at him. " Carthy, it 
 shall be my business to see that you do not spread a bad spirit 
 through the tenantry much longer. Sir, you have heard the 
 fellow's admission. It is an implied threat that he will give us 
 much serious trouble. There is not such another incendiary on 
 your property not one, upon my honour." 
 
 " Sir," said a servant, " dinner is on the table." 
 
 " Sinclair," said his landlord, " give him another crown, and 
 tell him to trouble me no more." Saying which, he and the 
 agent went up to the drawing-room, and in a moment Owen 
 saw a large party sweep downstairs, full of glee and vivacity, 
 by whom both himself and his distresses were as completely 
 forgotten as if they had never existed.
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 137 
 
 He now slowly departed, and knew not whether the house 
 steward had given him money or not until he felt it in his hand. 
 A cold, sorrowful weight lay upon his heart ; the din of the 
 town deadened his affliction into a stupor ; but an overwhelming 
 sense of his disappointment and a conviction of the agent's 
 diabolical falsehood entered like barbed arrows into his heart. 
 
 On leaving the steps he looked up to heaven in the distrac- 
 tion of his agonising thoughts ; the clouds were black and 
 lowering, the wind stormy, and as it carried them on its dark 
 wing along the sky, he wished, if it were the will of God, that his 
 head lay in the quiet graveyard where the ashes of his fore- 
 fathers reposed in peace. But he again remembered his 
 Kathleen and their children, and the large tears of anguish, 
 deep and bitter, rolled slowly down his cheeks. 
 
 We will not trace him into an hospital, whither the wound on 
 his head occasioned him to be sent, but simply state that, on 
 the second week after this, a man with his head bound in a 
 handkerchief, lame, bent, and evidently labouring under severe 
 illness or great affliction, might be seen toiling slowly up the 
 little hill that commanded a view of Tubber Derg. On 
 reaching the top he sat down to rest for a few minutes, but his 
 eye was eagerly turned to the house which contained all that 
 was dear to him on this earth. The sun was setting, and shone 
 with half his disc visible, in that dim and cheerless splendour 
 which produces almost in every temperament a feeling of 
 melancholy. His house, which in happier days formed so 
 beautiful and conspicuous an object in the view, was now, from 
 the darkness of its walls, scarcely discernible. The position of 
 the sun, too, rendered it more difficult to be seen, and Owen, 
 for it was he, shaded his eyes with 'his hand, to survey it more 
 distinctly. Many a harrowing thought and remembrance 
 passed through his mind as his eye traced its dim outline in the 
 fading light. He had done his duty he had gone to the 
 fountain-head, with a hope that his simple story of affliction 
 might be heard. But all was fruitless : the only gleam of hope 
 that opened upon their misery had now passed into darkness 
 and despair for ever. He pressed his aching forehead with 
 distraction as he thought of this ; then clasped his hands 
 bitterly, and groaned aloud. 
 
 At length he rose and proceeded with great difficulty, for 
 the short rest had stiffened his weak and fatigued joints. As 
 he approached home his heart sank ; and as he ascended the 
 blood-red stream which covered the bridle-way that led to his 
 house, what with fatigue and affliction, his agitation weakened
 
 138 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 him so much that he stopped and leaned on his staff several 
 times that he might take breath. 
 
 " It's too dark, maybe, for them to see me, or poor Kathleen 
 would send the darlin's to give me the she dha veha. 1 Kathleen, 
 avourneen machree, how my heart beats wid long to see you, 
 asthore, and to see the weeny crathurs glory be to Him that 
 has left them to me praise and glory to His name ! " 
 
 He was now within a few perches of the door ; but a sudden 
 misgiving shot across his heart when he saw it shut, and no 
 appearance of smoke from the chimney, nor of stir or life about 
 the house. He advanced. 
 
 " Mother of glory, what's this ? but, wait, let me rap again. 
 Kathleen Kathleen are you widin, avourneen ? Owen Alley 
 arn't yees widin, childhre ? Alley, sure I'm come back to yees 
 all !" and he rapped more loudly than before. A dark breeze 
 swept through the bushes as he spoke, but no voice nor sound 
 proceeded from the house ; all was still as death within. 
 "Alley!" he called once more to his little favourite, "I'm 
 come home wid something for you, asthore. I didn't forget 
 you, alanna I brought it from Dublin all the way Alley!" 
 but the gloomy murmur of the blast was the only reply. 
 
 Perhaps the most intense of all that he knew as misery was 
 that which he then felt ; but this state of suspense was soon 
 terminated by the appearance of a neighbour who was passing. 
 
 "Why, thin, Owen, but yer welcome home agin, my poor 
 fellow ; and I'm sorry that I haven't betther news for you, and 
 so are all of us." 
 
 He whom he addressed had almost lost the power of speech. 
 
 " Frank," said he, and he wrung his hand, " what what ? 
 was death among them ? for the sake of heaven, spake ! " 
 
 The severe pressure which he received in return ran like a 
 shock of paralysis to his heart. " Owen, you must be a man ; 
 every one pities yees, and may the Almighty pity and support 
 yees ! She is indeed, Owen, gone ; the weeny fair-haired 
 child, your favourite Alley, is gone. Yestherday she was 
 berrid ; and dacently the nabours attinded the place, and sent 
 in, as far as they had it, both mate and dhrink to Kathleen and 
 the other ones. Now, Owen, you've heard it ; trust in God, an' 
 be a man." 
 
 A deep and convulsive throe shook him to the heart. "Gone! 
 the fair-haired one ! Alley ! Alley ! the pride of both our 
 hearts ; the sweet, the quiet, and the sorrowful child, that 
 
 1 The welcome.
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 139 
 
 seldom played wid the rest, but kept wid mys ! Oh, my 
 
 darlin', my darlin' ! gone from my eyes for ever 1 God of 
 glory ! won't you support me this night of sorrow and misery I " 
 With a sudden yet profound sense of humility he dropped on 
 his knees at the threshold, and as the tears rolled down his 
 convulsed cheeks, exclaimed, in a burst of sublime piety not at 
 all uncommon amongst our peasantry, " I thank you, O my 
 God ! I thank you, an' I put myself an' my weeny ones, my 
 pastchee boght, into your hands. I thank you, O God, for what 
 has happened 1 Keep me up and support me och, I want it ! 
 You loved the weeny one, and you took her ; she was the light 
 of my eyes, and the pulse of my broken heart ; but you took 
 her, blessed Father of heaven 1 an' we can't be angry wid you 
 for so doin'. Still, if you had spared her if if oh, blessed 
 Father, my heart was in the very one you took but I thank 
 you, O God ! May she rest in pace, now and for ever, Amin ! '* 
 
 He then rose up, and, slowly wiping the tears from his eyes, 
 departed. 
 
 " Let me hould your arm, Frank, dear," said he. " I am 
 weak and tired wid a long journey. Och, and can it be that 
 she's gone the fair-haired colleen 1 When I was lavin' home, 
 an' had kissed them all 'twas the first time we ever parted, 
 Kathleen and I, since our marriage the blessed child came 
 over an' held up her mouth, sayin', ' Kiss me agin, father 1' and 
 this was afther herself an' all of them had kissed me afore. 
 But och, oh ! Blessed Mother, Frank, where's my Kathleen 
 and the rest ? and why are they out of their own place ?" 
 
 " Owen, I tould you awhile agone that you must be a man. 
 I gave you the worst news first, an' what's to come doesn't 
 signify much. It was too dear ; for if any man could live upon 
 it, you could you have neither house nor home, Owen, nor 
 land. An ordher came from the agint, your last cow was 
 taken, so was all you had in the world hem ! barrin' a thrifle. 
 No, bad manners to it no, you're not widout a home, anyway 
 the family's in my barn, brave and comfortable, compared 
 to what your own house was, that let in the wather through the 
 roof like a sieve ; and while the same barn's to the fore, never 
 say you want a home." 
 
 " God bless you, Frank, for that goodness to them and me. 
 If you're not rewarded for it here, you will be in a betther 
 place. Och, I long to see Kathleen and the childhre ! But 
 I'm fairly broken down, Frank, and hardly able to mark the 
 ground ; and, indeed, no wondher, if you knew but all ; still, 
 let God's will be done ! Poor Kathleen, I must bear up afore
 
 140 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 her, or she'll break her heart, for I know how she loved the 
 goolden-haired darlin' that's gone from us. Och, and how did 
 she go, Frank, for I left her betther ? " 
 
 "Why, the poor girsha took a relapse, and wasn't strong 
 enough to bear up aginst the last attack ; but it's one comfort 
 that you know she's happy." 
 
 Owen stood for a moment, and, looking solemnly in his neigh- 
 bour's face, exclaimed in a deep and exhausted voice, " Frank ! " 
 
 " What are you goin' to say, Owen ?" 
 
 " The heart widin me's broke broke ! " 
 
 The large tears rolled down his weather-beaten cheeks, and 
 he proceeded in silence to the house of his friend. There was, 
 however, a feeling of sorrow in his words and manner which 
 Frank could not withstand. He grasped Owen's hand, and, in 
 a low and broken voice, simply said, " Keep your spirits up 
 keep them up." 
 
 When they came to the barn in which his helpless family had 
 taken up their temporary residence, Owen stood for a moment 
 to collect himself; but he was nervous, and trembled with 
 repressed emotion. They then entered ; and Kathleen, on 
 seeing her beloved and affectionate husband, threw herself on 
 his bosom, and for some time felt neither joy nor sorrow she 
 had swooned. The poor man embraced her with a tenderness 
 at once mournful and deep. The children, on seeing their 
 father safely returned, forgot their recent grief and clung about 
 him with gladness and delight. In the meantime Kathleen 
 recovered, and Owen for many minutes could not check the 
 loud and clamorous grief now revived by the presence of her 
 husband with which the heart-broken and emaciated mother 
 deplored her departed child ; and Owen himself, on once more 
 looking among the little ones on seeing her little frock 
 hanging up, and her stool vacant by the fire on missing her 
 voice and her blue, laughing eyes, and remembering the 
 affectionate manner in which, as with a presentiment of death, 
 she held up her little mouth and offered him the last kiss he 
 slowly pulled the toys and cakes he had purchased for her out 
 of his pocket, surveyed them for a moment, and then, putting 
 his hands on his face, bent his head upon his bosom and wept 
 with the vehement outpouring of a father's sorrow. 
 
 The reader perceives that he was a meek man, that his 
 passions were not dark nor violent ; he bore no revenge to 
 those who neglected or injured him ; and in this he differed 
 from too many of his countrymen. No ; his spirit was broken 
 down with sorrow, and had not room for the fiercer and more
 
 TUB BE R DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 141 
 
 destructive passions. His case excited general pity. What- 
 ever his neighbours could do to soothe him and alleviate his 
 affliction was done. His farm was not taken ; for fearful 
 threats were held out against those who might venture to 
 occupy it. In these threats he had nothing to do ; on the 
 contrary, he strongly deprecated them. Their existence, how- 
 ever, was deemed by the agent sufficient to justify him in his 
 callous and malignant severity towards him. 
 
 We did not write this story for effect. Our object was to 
 relate facts that occurred. In Ireland there is much blame 
 justly attached to landlords for their neglect and severity in 
 such depressed times towards their tenants. There is also 
 much that is not only indefensible but atrocious on the part of 
 the tenants. But can the landed proprietors of Ireland plead 
 ignorance or want of education for their neglect and rapacity? 
 whilst the crimes of the tenants, on the contrary, may in general 
 be ascribed to both. He who lives, as perhaps his forefathers 
 have done, upon any man's property, and fails from unavoidable 
 calamity, has as just and clear a right to assistance from the 
 landlord as if the amount of that aid were a bonded debt. 
 Common policy, common sense, and common justice should 
 induce the Irish landlords to lower their rents according to the 
 market for agricultural produce ; otherwise poverty, famine, 
 crime, and vague political speculations, founded upon idle 
 hopes of a general transfer of property, will spread over and 
 convulse the kingdom. Any man who looks into our poverty 
 may see that our landlords ought to reduce their rents to a 
 standard suitable to the times and to the ability of the tenant. 
 
 But to return. Owen for another year struggled on for his 
 family without success ; his firm spirit was broken ; employ- 
 ment he could not get, and even had it been regular he would 
 have found it impracticable to support his helpless wife and 
 children by his labour. The next year unhappily was also one 
 of sickness and of want ; the country was not only a wide 
 waste of poverty, but overspread with typhus fever. One 
 Saturday night he and the family found themselves without 
 food ; they had not tasted a morsel for twenty-four hours. 
 There were murmurings and tears, and finally a low conversa- 
 tion among them, as if they held a conference upon some 
 subject which filled them with both grief and satisfaction. In 
 this alternation of feeling did they pass the time until the sharp 
 gnawing of hunger was relieved by sleep. A keen December 
 wind blew with a bitter blast on the following morning ; the 
 rain was borne along upon it with violence, and the cold was 
 
 11
 
 M2 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 chill and piercing. Owen, his wife, and theii six children 
 issued at daybreak out of the barn in which, ever since their 
 removal from Tubber Derg, they had lived until then ; their 
 miserable fragments of bedclothes were tied in a bundle to 
 keep them dry ; their pace was slow, need we say sorrowful ; 
 all were in tears. Owen and Kathleen went first, with a child 
 upon the back, and another in the hand, of each. Their route 
 lay by their former dwelling, the door of which was open, for it 
 had not been inhabited. On passing it they stood a moment ; 
 then with a simultaneous impulse both approached entered 
 and took one last look of a spot to which their hearts clung 
 with enduring attachment. They then returned ; and as they 
 passed, Owen put forth his hand, picked a few small pebbles 
 out of the wall, and put them in his pocket. 
 
 " Farewell ! " said he, " and may the blessin' of God rest 
 upon you ! We now lave you for ever ! We're goin' at last to 
 beg our bread through the world wide, where none will know 
 of the happy days we passed widin your walls ! We must lave 
 you ; but glory be to the Almighty, we are goin' wid a clear 
 conscience ; we took no revenge into our own hands, but left 
 everything to God above us. We are poor, but there is neither 
 blood, nor murder, nor dishonesty upon our heads. Don't cry, 
 Kathleen don't cry, childhre ; there is still a good God above, 
 who can and may do something for us_j^/, glory be to his name!" 
 
 He then passed on with his family, which, including himself, 
 made in all eight paupers, being an additional burden upon 
 the country which might easily have been avoided. His land 
 was about two years waste, and when it was ultimately taken 
 the house was a ruin, and the money allowed by the landlord 
 for building a new one, together with the loss of two years' rent, 
 would, if humanely directed, have enabled Owen M'Carthy to 
 remain a solvent tenant. 
 
 When an Irish peasant is reduced to pauperism he seldom 
 commences the melancholy task of soliciting alms in his native 
 place. The trial is always a severe one, and he is anxious to 
 hide his shame and misery from the eyes of those who know 
 him. This is one reason why some system of poor-laws should 
 be introduced into the country. Paupers of this description 
 become a burden upon strangers, whilst those who are capable 
 of entering with friendly sympathy into their m sfortunes have 
 no opportunity of assisting them. Indeed, this shame of 
 seeking alms from those who have known the mendicant in 
 better days is a proof that the absence of poor-laws takes away 
 from the poorer classes one of the strongest incitements to
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 143 
 
 industry. For instance, if every pauper in Ireland were confined 
 to his own parish, and compelled to beg from his acquaintances, 
 the sense of shame alone would, by stirring them up to greater 
 industry, reduce the number of mendicants one-half. There is 
 a strong spirit of family pride in Ireland, which would be 
 sufficient to make many poor of both sexes exert themselves to 
 the uttermost rather than cast a stain upon their name, or bring 
 a blush to the face of their relations. But now it is not so ; the 
 mendicant sets out to beg, and in every instance commences 
 his new mode of life in some distant part of the country, where 
 his name and family are not known. 
 
 Indeed, it is astonishing how any man can for a moment 
 hesitate to form his opinion upon the subject of poor-laws. The 
 English and Scotch gentry know something about the middle 
 and lower classes of their respective countries, and of course 
 they have a fixed system of provision for the poor in each. The 
 ignorance of the Irish gentry upon almost every subject connected 
 with the real good of the people is only in keeping with their 
 ignorance of the people themselves. It is to be feared, however, 
 that their disinclination to introduce poor-laws arises less from 
 actual ignorance than from an illiberal selfishness. The facts of 
 the case are these : In Ireland the whole support of the incon- 
 ceivable multitude of paupers, who swarm like locusts over the 
 surface of the country, rests upon the middle and lower classes, 
 or rather upon the latter, for there is scarcely such a thing in 
 this unhappy country as a middle class. In not one out of a 
 thousand instances do the gentry contribute to the mendicant 
 poor. In the first place, a vast proportion of our landlords are 
 absentees, who squander upon their own pleasures or vices, in 
 the theatres, saloons, or gaming-houses of France, or in the 
 softer profligacies of Italy, that which ought to return in some 
 shape to stand in the place of duties so shamefully neglected. 
 These persons contribute nothing to the poor, except the various 
 evils which their absence entails upon them. 
 
 On the other hand, the resident gentry never in any case 
 assist a beggar, even in the remote parts of the country, where 
 there are no Mendicity Institutions. Nor do the beggars ever 
 think of applying to them. They know that his honour's dogs 
 would be slipped at them ; or that the whip might be laid 
 perhaps to the shoulders of a broken-hearted father, with his 
 brood of helpless children wanting food ; perhaps upon the 
 emaciated person of a miserable widow, who begs for her orphans, 
 only because the hands that supported, and would have defended, 
 both her and them are mouldered into dust.
 
 144 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 Upon the middle and lower classes, therefore, comes directly 
 the heavy burden of supporting the great mass of pauperism 
 that presses upon Ireland. It is certain that the Irish landlords 
 know this, and that they are reluctant to see any law enacted 
 which might make the performance of their duties to the poor 
 compulsory. This, indeed, is natural in men who have so 
 inhumanly neglected them. 
 
 But what must the state of a country be where those who are 
 on the way to pauperism themselves are exclusively burdened 
 with the support of the vagrant poor? It is like putting 
 additional weight on a man already sinking under the burden 
 he bears. The landlords suppose that because the maintenance 
 of the idle who are able, and of the aged and infirm who are not 
 able, to work comes upon the renters of land, they themselves 
 are exempted from their support. This, if true, is as bitter a 
 stigma upon their humanity as upon their sense of justice ; but 
 it is not true. Though the cost of supporting such an incredible 
 number of the idle and helpless does, in the first place, fall 
 upon the tenant, yet, by diminishing his means, and by often 
 compelling him to purchase towards the end of the season, a 
 portion of food equal to that which he has given away in charity, 
 it certainly becomes ultimately a clear deduction from the land- 
 lord's rent. In either case it is a deduction, but in the latter it 
 is often doubly so ; inasmuch as the poor tenants must frequently 
 pay at the close of a season double, perhaps treble, the price 
 which provision brought at the beginning of it. 
 
 Any person conversant with the Irish people must frequently 
 have heard such dialogues as the following during the applica- 
 tion of a beggar for alms. 
 
 Mendicant. " We're axin' your charity, for God's sake ! " 
 
 Poor Tenant. " Whethen, for his sake you would get it, poor 
 crathur, if we had it ; but it's not for you widin the four corners 
 of the house. It ud be well for us if we had now all we gave 
 away in charity duriri the whole year; we wouldn't have to be 
 buyin' for ourselves at three prices. Why don't you go up to 
 the Big House ? They're rich, and can afford it." 
 
 Mendicant (with a shrug, which sets all his coats and bags in 
 motion). " Och ! och ! The Big House, inagh ! Musha, do 
 you want me an' the childhre here to be torn to pieces vvid the 
 dogs ? or lashed wid a whip by one o' the sarwints ? No, no, 
 avourneen (with a hopeless shake of the head). That ud be a 
 blue look-up, like a clear evenin'." 
 
 Poor Tenant. " Then indeed we haven't it to help you now, 
 poor man. We're buyin' ourselves."
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 145 
 
 Mendicant. " Thin, throth, that's lucky, so it is ! I've as 
 purty a grain o' male here as you'd wish to thicken wather vvid, 
 that I struv to get together in hopes to be able to buy a 
 quarther o' tobaccy, along wid a pair o' new bades an' a scapular 
 for myself. I'm suspicious that there's about a stone ov it 
 altogether. You can have it anundher the market price, for I'm 
 frettin' at not havin' the scapular an me. Sure the Lord will 
 sind me an' the childhre a bit an' sup some way else glory to 
 his name ! besides a lock o' praties in the corner o' the bag 
 here, that'll do us for this day, anyway." 
 
 The bargain is immediately struck, and the poor tenant is 
 glad to purchase, even from a beggar, his stone of meal, in 
 consequence of getting it a few pence under market price. 
 Such scenes as this, which are of frequent occurrence in the 
 country parts of Ireland, need no comment. 
 
 This certainly is not a state of things which should be 
 permitted to exist. Every man ought to be compelled to 
 support the poor of his native parish according to his means. 
 It is an indelible disgrace to the legislature so long to have 
 neglected the paupers of Ireland. Is it to be thought of with 
 common patience that a person rolling in wealth shall feed 
 upon his turtle, his venison, and his costly luxuries of every 
 description, for which he will not scruple to pay the highest 
 price that this heartless and selfish man, whether he reside at 
 home or abroad, shall thus unconscionably pamper himself with 
 viands purchased by the toil of the people, and yet not 
 contribute to their miseries when poverty, sickness, or age 
 throws them upon the scanty support of casual charity ? 
 
 Shall this man be permitted to batten in luxury in a foreign 
 land or at home, to whip our paupers from his carriage, or hunt 
 them, like beasts of prey, from his grounds, whilst the lower 
 classes the gradually decaying poor are compelled to groan 
 under the burden of their support in addition to their other 
 burdens ? Surely it is not a question which admits of argument. 
 This subject has been darkened and made difficult by fine-spun 
 and unintelligible theories, when the only knowledge necessary 
 to understand it may be gained by spending a few weeks in 
 some poor village in the interior of the country. As for Parlia- 
 mentary Committees upon this or any other subject, they are, 
 with reverence be it spoken, thoroughly contemptible. They 
 will summon and examine witnesses who, for the most part, 
 know little about the habits or distresses of the poor ; public 
 money will be wasted in defraying their expenses and in 
 printing reports ; resolutions will be passed ; something will be
 
 146 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 said about it in the House of Commons ; and in a few weeks, 
 after resolving and re-resolving, it is as little thought of as if it 
 had never been the subject of investigation. In the meantime 
 the evil proceeds becomes more inveterate eats into the 
 already declining prosperity of the country whilst those who 
 suffer under it have the consolation of knowing that a Parlia- 
 mentary Comhiittee sat longer upon it than so many geese 
 upon their eggs, but hatched nothing. Two circumstances 
 connected with pauperism in Ireland are worthy of notice. The 
 first is this the Roman Catholics, who certainly constitute the 
 bulk of the population, feel themselves called upon, from the 
 peculiar tenets of their religion, to exercise indiscriminate 
 charity largely to the begging poor. They act under the 
 impression that eleemosynary good works possess the power of 
 cancelling sin to an extent almost incredible. Many of their 
 religious legends are founded upon this view of the case ; and 
 the reader will find an appropriate one in the priest's sermon, 
 as given in our tale of the " Poor Scholar." That legend is one 
 which the author has many a time heard from the lips of the 
 people, by whom it was implicitly believed. A man who may 
 have committed a murder over night will the next day 
 endeavour to wipe away his guilt by alms given for the purpose 
 of getting the benefit of "the poor man's prayer." The 
 principle of assisting our distressed fellow-creatures, when 
 rationally exercised, is one of the best in society ; but here it 
 becomes entangled with error, superstition, and even with crime 
 acts as a bounty upon imposture, and in some degree pre- 
 disposes to guilt, from an erroneous belief that sin may be 
 cancelled by alms and the prayers of mendicant impostors. 
 
 The second point in connection with pauperism is the 
 immoral influence that proceeds from the relation in which the 
 begging poor in Ireland stand towards the class by whom they 
 are supported. These, as we have already said, are the poorest, 
 least educated, and consequently the most ignorant description 
 of the people. They are also the most numerous. There hive 
 been for centuries, probably since the Reformation itself, certain 
 opinions floating among the lower classes in Ireland, all tending 
 to prepare them for some great change in their favour, arising 
 from the discomfiture of heresy, the overthrow of their enemies, 
 and the exaltation of themselves and their religion. 
 
 Scarcely had the public mind subsided after the Rebellion of 
 Ninety-eight, when the success of Bonaparte directed the eyes 
 and the hopes of the Irish people towards him as the person 
 designed to be their deliverer. Many a fine fiction has the
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 147 
 
 author of this work heard about that great man's escapes, con- 
 cerning the bullets that conveniently turned aside from his 
 person, and the sabres that civilly declined to cut him down. 
 Many prophecies too were related, in which the glory of this 
 country under his reign was touched off in the happiest 
 colours. Pastorini also gave such notions an impulse. 
 Eighteen twenty-five was to be the year of their deliverance ; 
 George the Fourth was never to fill the British throne ; and 
 the mill of Lowth was to be turned three times with human 
 blood. The miller with the two thumbs was then living, said 
 the mendicants, for they were the principal propagators of these 
 opinions, and the great expounders of their own prophecies ; so 
 that, of course, there could be no further doubt upon the 
 subject. Several of them had seen him a red-haired man 
 with broad shoulders, stout legs, exactly as a miller ought to 
 have, and two thumbs on his right hand ; all precisely as the 
 prophecy had stated. Then there was Beal-derg, and several 
 others of the fierce old Milesian chiefs, who along with their 
 armies lay in an enchanted sleep, all ready to awake and take a 
 part in the delivery of the country. " Sure such a man," and 
 they would name him, in the time of the mendicant's grandfather, 
 " was once going to a fair to sell a horse well and good ; the 
 time was the dawn of morning, a little before daylight. He 
 met a man who undertook to purchase his horse. They agreed 
 upon the price, and the seller of him followed the buyer into a 
 Rath, where he found a range of horses, each with an armed 
 soldier asleep by his side, ready to spring upon him if awoke. 
 The purchaser cautioned the owner of the horse, as they were 
 about to enter the subterraneous dwelling, against touching 
 either horse or man ; but the countryman, happening to 
 stumble, inadvertently laid his hand upon a sleeping soldier, 
 who immediately leaped up, drew his sword, and asked, ' Wuil 
 anam ink?* (Is the time in it? Is the time arrived?) To 
 which the horse-dealer of the Rath replied, ' Ha niel. Gho 
 dhee collhow areesht? (No ; go to sleep again.) Upon this 
 the soldier immediately sank down in his former position, and 
 unbroken sleep reigned throughout the cave." The influence 
 on the warm imaginations of ignorant people of the fictions 
 concocted by vagrant mendicants is very pernicious. They fill 
 their minds with the most palpable absurdities, and, what is 
 worse, with opinions which, along with being injurious to those 
 who receive them, in every instance insure for those who pro- 
 pagate them a cordial and kind reception. 
 These mendicants consequently pander, for their own selfish
 
 148 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 ehds, to the prejudices of the ignorant, which they nourish and 
 draw out in a manner that has in no slight degree been sub- 
 versive of the peace of the country. Scarcely any political cir- 
 cumstance occurs which they do not immediately seize upon and 
 twist to their own purposes, or, in other words, to the opinions 
 of those from whom they derive their support. When our 
 present police first appeared in their uniforms and black belts, 
 another prophecy, forsooth, was fulfilled. Immediately before 
 the downfall of heresy a body of " Black Militia" was to appear. 
 The police, then, are the black militia, and the people consider 
 themselves another step nearer the consummation of their vague 
 speculations. 
 
 In the year Ninety-eight the Irish mendicants were active 
 agents, clever spies, and expert messengers on the part of the 
 people ; and to this day they carry falsehood and the materials 
 of outrage in its worst shape into the bosom of peaceable 
 families, who would otherwise never become connected with 
 a system which is calculated to bring nothing but ruin and 
 destruction upon those who permit themselves to join it. 
 
 This evil, and it is no small one, would by the introduction 
 of poor-laws be utterly abolished. The people would not only 
 be more easily improved by purer knowledge ; but education, 
 when received, would not be corrupted by the infusion into it of 
 such ingredients as the above. In many other points of view 
 the confirmed and hackneyed mendicants of Ireland are a great 
 evil to the morals of the people. We could easily detail them, 
 but such not being our object at present, we will now dismiss 
 the subject of poor-laws, and resume our narrative. 
 
 Far far different from this description of impostors were 
 Owen M'Carthy and his family. Their misfortunes were not 
 the consequences of negligence or misconduct on their own 
 part. They struggled long but unavailingly against high rents 
 and low markets ; against neglect on the part of the landlord 
 and his agent ; against sickness, famine, and death. They had 
 no alternative but to beg or starve. Owen was willing to work, 
 but he could not procure employment, and provided he could, 
 the miserable sum of sixpence a day, when food was scarce and 
 dear, would not support him, his wife, and six little ones. He 
 became a pauper, therefore, only to avoid starvation. 
 
 Heavy and black was his heart, to use the strong expression 
 of the people, on the bitter morning when he set out to 
 encounter the dismal task of seeking alms in order to keep life 
 in himself and his family. The plan was devised on the pre- 
 ceding night ; but to no mortal, except his wife, was it com-
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 149 
 
 municated. The honest pride of a man whose mind was above 
 committing a mean action would not permit him to reveal what 
 he considered the first stain that ever was known to rest upon 
 the name of M'Carthy. He therefore sallied out under the 
 beating of the storm, and proceeded, without caring much 
 whither he went, until he got considerably beyond the bounds 
 of his own parish. 
 
 In the meantime hunger pressed keenly upon him and them. 
 The day had no appearance of clearing up ; the heavy rain and 
 sleet beat into their thin, worn garments, and the clamour of 
 his children for food began to grow more and more impor- 
 tunate. They came to the shelter of a hedge which enclosed 
 on one side a remote and broken road, along which, in order to 
 avoid the risk of being recognised, they had preferred travelling. 
 Owen stood here for a few minutes to consult with his wife as 
 to where and when they should " make a beginning," but on 
 looking round he found her in tears. 
 
 " Kathleen, asthore," said he, " I can't bid you not cry ; bear 
 up, acushla machree, bear up. Sure, as I said when we came 
 out this mornin', there's a good God above us that can still 
 turn over the good lafe for us, if we put our hopes in him." 
 
 " Owen," said his sinking wife, " it's not altogether bekase 
 we're brought to this that I'm cryin'. No, indeed." 
 
 "Thin what ails you, Kathleen, darlin'?" 
 
 The wife hesitated, and evaded the question for some time ; 
 but at length, upon his pressing her for an answer, with a fresh 
 gush of sorrow she replied 
 
 " Owen, since you must know och, may God pity us ! since 
 you must know, it's wid hunger ivid hunger! I kept, un- 
 knownst, a little bit of bread to give the childhre this mornin', 
 and that was part of it I gave you yestherday early I'm near 
 two days fastin'." 
 
 " Kathleen ! Kathleen 1 Och ! sure I know your worth, 
 avillish. You were too good a wife, an' too good a mother, 
 a'most I God forgive me, Kathleen ! I fretted about beggin', 
 dear ; but as my heavenly Father's above me, I'm now happier 
 to beg wid you by my side, nor if I war in the best house in the 
 province widout you ! Mould up, avourneen, for a while. Come 
 on, childhre, darlin's, an' the first house we meet we'll ax their 
 
 char , their assistance. Come on, darlin's, all of yees. Why, 
 
 my heart's asier, so it is. Sure we have your mother, childhre, 
 safe wid us, an' what signifies anything so long as she's left to us." 
 
 He then raised his wife tenderly, for she had been compelled 
 to sit from weakness, and they bent their steps to a decent
 
 ISO TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 farm-house that stood a few perches off the road, about a 
 quarter of a mile before them. 
 
 As they approached the door the husband hesitated a 
 moment; his face got paler than usual, and his lips quivered 
 as he said, "Kathleen " 
 
 "I know what you're goin' to say, Owen. No, acushla, you 
 won't ; /'// ax it myself." 
 
 "Do," said Owen, with difficulty; "I can't do it; but I'll 
 overcome my pride afore long, I hope. It's thryin' to me, 
 Kathleen, an' you know it is for you know how little I ever 
 expected to be brought to this." 
 
 " Husht, avillish ! We'll thry, then, in the name o' God." 
 
 As she spoke, the children, herself, and her husband entered, 
 to beg for the first time in their lives a morsel of food. Yes ! 
 timidly with a blush of shame, red even to crimson, upon the 
 pallid features of Kathleen with grief acute and piercing they 
 entered the house together. 
 
 For some minutes they stood and spoke not. The unhappy 
 woman, unaccustomed to the language of supplication, scarcely 
 knew in what terms to crave assistance. Owen himself stood 
 back, uncovered, his fine but much changed features overcast 
 with an expression of deep affliction. Kathleen cast a single 
 glance at him as if for encouragement. Their eyes met : she 
 saw the upright man the last remnant of the M'Carthy him- 
 self once the friend of the poor, of the unhappy, of the afflicted 
 standing crushed and broken down by misfortunes which he 
 had not deserved, waiting with patience for a morsel of charity. 
 Owen, too, had his remembrances. He recollected the days 
 when he sought and gained the pure and fond affections of his 
 Kathleen ; when beauty, and youth, and innocence encircled 
 her with their light and their grace, as she spoke or moved ; he 
 saw her a happy wife and mother in her own home, kind and 
 benevolent to all who required her good word or her good 
 office, and remembered the sweetness of her light-heaited song; 
 but now she was homeless. He remembered, too, how she used 
 to plead witli himself for the afflicted. It was but a moment ; 
 yet when their eyes met, that moment was crowded by recollec- 
 tions that flashed across their minds with a keen sense of a lot 
 so bitter and wretched as theirs. Kathleen could not speak, 
 although she tried ; her sobs denied her utterance ; and Owen 
 involuntarily sat upon a chair, and covered his face with his 
 hand. 
 
 To an observing eye it is never difficult to detect the cant of 
 imposture, or to perceive distress when it is real The good
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 151 
 
 woman of the house, as is usual in Ireland, was in the act of 
 approaching them, unsolicited, with a double handful of meal 
 that is, what the Scotch and northern Irish call a gowpen, or as 
 much as both hands locked together can contain when, 
 noticing their distress, she paused a moment, eyed them more 
 closely, and exclaimed 
 
 " What's this ? Why, there's something wrong wid you, good 
 people ! But first an' foremost take this, in the name an' 
 honour of God." 
 
 " May the blessin' of the same Man 1 rest upon yees !" replied 
 Kathleen. " This is a sorrowful thrial to us ; for it's our first 
 day to be upon the world ; an' this is the first help of the kind 
 we ever axed for, or ever got ; an' indeed, now I find we haven't 
 even a place to carry it in. I've no b -b cloth, or anything 
 to hould it." 
 
 "Your first, is it?" said the good woman. "Your first! 
 May the marciful queen o' heaven look down upon yees, but it's 
 a bitther day yees war driven out on ! Sit down there, you poor 
 crathur. God pity you, I pray this day, for you have a heart- 
 broken look ! Sit down awhile, near the fire, you an' the 
 childhre ! Come over, darlin's, an' warm yourselves ! Och, 
 oh ! but it's the thousand pities to see sich fine childhre hand- 
 some an' good-lookin' even as they are, brought to this ! Come 
 ever, good man ; get near the fire, for you're wet an' cowld, all 
 of yees. Brian, ludher them two lazy thieves o' dogs out o' that. 
 Eiree suas, a ivadhee bradagh, agus go mah a shin ! be off wid 
 yees, ye lazy divils, that's not worth your feedin' 1 Come over, 
 honest man." 
 
 Owen and his family were placed near the fire; the poor 
 man's heart was full, and he sighed heavily. 
 
 "May He that it plased to thry us," he exclaimed, "reward 
 you for this ! We are," he continued, "a poor an' a sufferin' 
 family ; but it's the will of God that we should be so, an' sure 
 we can't complain widout committin' sin. All we ax now is 
 that it may be plasin' to Him that brought us low to enable us 
 to bear up undher our thrials. We would take it to our choice 
 to beg an' be honest, sooner nor to be wealthy an' wicked ! 
 We have our failin's an' our sins, God help us ; but still there's 
 nothin' dark or heavy on our consciences. Glory be to the 
 name of God for it ! " 
 
 1 God is sometimes thus termed in Ireland. By "Man" here is 
 meant person or being. He is also called the "Man above"; 
 although this must have been intended for, and often is applied to, 
 Christ only.
 
 152 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 "Throth, I believe you," replied the farmer's wife; "there's 
 thruth an' honesty in your face; one may easily s.ee the remains 
 of dacency about yees all. Musha, throw your little things 
 aside, an' stay where yees are to-day ; you can't bring out the 
 childhre undher the teem of rain an' sleet that's in it. Wurrah 
 dheelish, but it's the bitther day all out ! Faix, Paddy will get 
 a dhrookin, so he will, at that weary fair wid the stirks, poor 
 bouchal a son of ours that's gone to Ballyboulteen to sell some 
 cattle, an' he'll not be worth three hapuns afore he comes back. 
 I hope he'll have sinse to go into some house when he's done 
 an' dhry himself well, anyhow, besides takin' somethin' to keep 
 out the cowld. Put by your things, an' don't think of goin' oul 
 sich a day." 
 
 "We thank you," replied Owen. "Indeed, we're glad to 
 stay undher your roof; for, poor things, they're badly able to 
 thravel sich a day these childhre." 
 
 " Musha, yees ate no breakfast, maybe?" 
 
 Owen and his family were silent. The children looked wist- 
 fully at their parents, anxious that they should confirm what 
 the good woman surmised ; the father looked again at his 
 famished brood and his sinking wife, and nature overcame 
 him. 
 
 " Food did not crass our lips this day," replied Owen ; " an' I 
 may say hardly anything yestherday." 
 
 " Oh, blessed mother ! Here, Katty Murray, drop scrubbin' 
 that dresser, an' put down the midlin' pot for stirabout. Be 
 livin' ! manim an diouol, woman alive, handle yourself; you 
 might a had it boilin' by this. God presarve us ! to be two days 
 widout atin' 1 Be the crass, Katty, if you're not alive, I'll give 
 you a douse o' the churnstaff that'll bring the fire to your eyes 1 
 Do you hear me ?" 
 
 " I do hear you, an' did often feel you too, for fraid hearin' 
 wouldn't do. You think there's no places in the world but your 
 own, I b'lieve. Faix, indeed ! it's well come up wid us to be 
 randied about wid no less a switch than a churnstaff! " 
 
 " Is it givin' back talk you are ? Bad end to me, if you look 
 crucked but I'll lave you a mark to remember me by. What 
 woman ud put up wid you but myself, you shkamin' flipe? It 
 wasn't to give me your bad tongue I hired you, but to do your 
 business ; an' be the crass above us, if you turn your tongue on 
 me agin, I'll give you the weight o' the churnstaff. Is it bekase 
 they're poor people, that it plased God to bring to this, that you 
 turn up your nose at doin' anything to sarve them ? There's not 
 wather enough there, I say put in more. What signifies all
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 153 
 
 the stirabout that ud make ? Put plinty in : it's betther always 
 to have too much than too little. Faix, I tell you, you'll want a 
 male's meat an' a night's lodgin' afore you die, if you don't mend 
 your manners." 
 
 " Och, musha, the poor girl is doin' her best," observed 
 Kathleen; "an' I'm sure she wouldn't be guilty of usin' pride 
 to the likes of us, or to any one that the Lord has laid his hand 
 upon." 
 
 " She had betther not, while I'm to the fore," said her 
 mistress. "What is she herself? Sure if it was a sin to be 
 poor, God help the world ! No ; it's neither a sin nor a 
 shame." 
 
 " Thanks be to God, no," said Owen ; " it's neither the one nor 
 the other. So long as we keep a fair name, an' a clear con- 
 science, we can't ever say that our case is hard." 
 
 After some further conversation, a comfortable breakfast was 
 prepared for them, of which they partook with an appetite 
 sharpened by their long abstinence from food. Their stay here 
 was particularly fortunate, for as they were certain of a cordial 
 welcome, and an abundance of that which they much wanted 
 wholesome food the pressure of immediate distress was 
 removed. They had time to think more accurately upon the 
 little preparations for misery which were necessary, and, as the 
 day's leisure was at their disposal, Kathleen's needle and 
 scissors were industriously plied in mending the tattered 
 clothes of her husband and her children, in order to meet the 
 inclemency of the weather. 
 
 On the following morning, after another abundant breakfast, 
 and substantial marks of kindness from their entertainers, they 
 prepared to resume their new and melancholy mode of life. 
 As they were about to depart, the farmer's wife addressed them 
 in the following terms the farmer himself, by the way, being 
 but the shadow of his worthy partner in life 
 
 Wife. " Now, good people, you're takin' the world on your 
 heads " 
 
 Farmer. "Ay, good people, you're takin' the world on your 
 heads " 
 
 Wife. " Hold your tongue, Brian, an' suck your dudeen. It's 
 me that's spakin' to them, so none of your palaver, if you 
 plase, till I'm done, an' then you may prache till Tib's Eve, an' 
 that's neither before Christmas nor afther it." 
 
 Farmer. " Sure I'm sayin' nothin', Evleen, barrin' houldin' 
 my tongue, a shuchar." 1 
 
 1 My sugar
 
 154 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 Wife. " You're takin' the world on yees, an' God knows 'tis a 
 heavy load to carry, poor crathurs." 
 
 Farmer. " A heavy load, poor crathurs 1 God he knows it's 
 that." 
 
 Wife. " Brian ! Gluntho ma ? did you hear me ? You'll be 
 puttin' in your gab, an* me spakin' ? How-an'-diver, as I was 
 sayin', our house was the first yees came to, an' they say there's 
 a great blessin' to thim that gives the first charity to a poor 
 man or woman settin' out to look for their bit." 
 
 Farmer. "Throgs, ay! Whin they set out to look tor their bit." 
 
 Wife. " By the crass, Brian, you'd vex a saint. What have 
 you to say in it, you pittiogue ? Hould your whisht now, an' 
 suck your dudeen, I say; sure I allow you a quarther o' tobaccy 
 a week, an' what right have you to be puttin' in your gosther 
 when other people's spakin'?" 
 
 Farmer. " Go an." 
 
 Wife. " So, you see, the long an' the short of it is, that when- 
 ever you happen to be in this side of the counthry, always come 
 to us. You know the ould sayin' wheo the poor man comes 
 he brings a blessin', an' whin he goes he carries away a curse. 
 You have as much meal as will last yees a day or two ; an' God 
 he sees you're heartily welcome to all yees got ! " 
 
 Fanner. " God he sees you're heartily welcome " 
 
 Wife. " Chorp an diouol, Brian, hould your tongue, or I'll 
 turn you out o' the kitchen. One can't hear their own ears for 
 you, you poor squakin' dhrone. By the crass, I'll eh? Will 
 you whisht, now?" 
 
 Farmer. " Go an. Amn't I dhrawin' my pipe?" 
 
 Wife. ".Well, dhraw itj but don't dhraw me down upon you, 
 
 barrin' Do you hear me ? an' the sthrange people to the 
 
 fore too ! Well, the Lord be wid yees, and bless yees 1 But 
 afore yees go, jist lave your blessin' wid us ; for it's a good 
 thing to have the blessin' of the poor." 
 
 " The Lord bless you an' yours ! " said Owen fervently. 
 " May you an' them never oh, may you never never suffer 
 what we've suffered, nor know what it is to want a male's mate 
 or a night's lodgin' !" 
 
 "Amin!" exclaimed Kathleen. "May the world flow upon 
 you ! for your good, kind heart desarves it." 
 
 Farmer. " An' whisper: I wish you'd offer up a prayer for the 
 rulin' o' the tongue. The Lord might hear you, but there's no 
 great hopes that ever he'll hear me; though I've prayed for it 
 a'most ever since I was married, night an' day, winther an' 
 summer : but no use she's as bad as ever."
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 155 
 
 This was in a kind of friendly insinuating undertone to 
 Owen, who on hearing it simply nodded his head, but made no 
 other reply. 
 
 They then recommenced their journey, after having once 
 more blessed, and been invited by, their charitable entertainers, 
 who made them promise never to pass their house without 
 stopping a night with them. 
 
 It is not our intention to trace Owen M'Carthy and his wife 
 through all the variety which a wandering pauper's life affords. 
 He never could reconcile himself to the habits of a mendicant. 
 His honest pride and integrity of heart raised him above it; 
 neither did he sink into the whine and cant of imposture, nor 
 the slang of knavery. No ; there was a touch of manly 
 sorrow about him which neither time nor familiarity with his 
 degraded mode of life could take away from him. His usual 
 observation to his wife, and he never made it without a pang of 
 intense bitterness, was, " Kathleen, darlin', it's thrue we have 
 enough to ate an' to dhrink ; but we have no home.' no 
 home!" To a man like him it was a thought of surpassing 
 bitterness indeed. 
 
 "Ah I Kathleen," he would observe, "if we had but the 
 poorest shed that could be built, provided it was our own, 
 wouldn't we be happy? The bread we ate, avourneen, doesn't 
 do us good. We don't work for it ; it's the bread of shame and 
 idleness ; and yet it's Owen M'Carthy that ates it! But, avour- 
 neen, that's past ; an' we'll never see our own home, or our own 
 hearth, agin. That's what's cuttin' into my heart, Kathleen. 
 Never ! never !" 
 
 Many a trial, too, of another kind was his patience called 
 upon to sustain ; particularly from the wealthy and the more 
 elevated in life, when his inexperience as a mendicant led him 
 to solicit their assistance. 
 
 " Begone, sirrah, off my grounds ! " one would say. " Why 
 don't you work, you sturdy impostor," another would exclaim, 
 "rather than stroll about so lazily, training your brats to the 
 gallows?" "You should be taken up, fellow, as a vagrant," 
 a third would observe ; "and if I ever catch you coming up my 
 avenue again, depend upon it, I will slip my dogs at you and 
 your idle spawn." 
 
 Owen, on these occasions, turned away in silence. He did not 
 curse them; but the pangs of his honest heart went before Him 
 who will, sooner or later, visit upon the heads of such men their 
 cruel spurning and neglect of the poor. 
 
 " Kathleen," he observed to his wife one day, about a year or
 
 156 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL, 
 
 more after they had begun to beg "Kathleen, I have been 
 turnin' it in my mind that some of these childhre might sthrive 
 to earn their bit an' sup, an' their little coverin' of clo'es, poor 
 things. We might put them to herd cows in the summer, an' 
 the girshas to somethin' else in the farmers' houses. What do 
 you think, asthore ? " 
 
 " For God's sake do, Owen ; sure my heart's crushed to see 
 them my own childhre, that I could lay down my life for 
 beggin' from door to door. Och, do something for them that 
 way, Owen, an' you'll relieve the heart that loves them. It's a 
 sore sight to a mother's eye, Owen, to see her childhre beggin' 
 their morsel." 
 
 " It is, darlin' it is ; we'll hire out the three eldest Brian, 
 an' Owen, an' Pether to herd cows ; an' we may get Peggy into 
 some farmer's house to do loose jobs an' run of messages. 
 Then we'd have only little Kathleen an' poor Ned along wid us. 
 I'll thry, anyway, an' if I can get them places, who knows what 
 may happen ? I have a plan in my head that I'll tell you, 
 thin." 
 
 "Arrah, what is it, Owen jewel? Sure if I know it, maybe 
 when I'm sorrowful, that thinkin' of it, an' lookin' forrid to it, 
 will make me happier. An' I'm sure, acushla, you would like 
 that." 
 
 " But maybe, Kathleen, if it wouldn't come to pass, that the 
 disappointment ud be heavy on you ?" 
 
 " How could it, Owen ? Sure we can't be worse nor we are, 
 whatever happens ! " 
 
 " Thrue enough indeed, I forgot that ; an' yet we might, 
 Kathleen. Sure we'd be worse if we or the childhre had bad 
 health." 
 
 " God forgive me thin for what I said ! We might be worse. 
 Well, but what is the plan, Owen ? " 
 
 "Why, when we get the childhre places, I'll sthrive to take a 
 little house, an' work as a cottar. Then, Kathleen, l w^d have 
 a home of our own! I'd work from light to light ; I'd work 
 before hours an' afther hours ; ay, nine days in the week, or 
 we'd be comfortable in our own little home. We might be poor, 
 Kathleen, I know that, an' hard pressed too ; but then, as I 
 said, we'd have our own home an our own hearth ; our morsel, 
 if it ud be homely, would be sweet, for it would be the fruits of 
 our own labour." 
 
 " Now, Owen, do you think you could manage to get 
 that?" 
 
 " Wait, acushla, till we get the childhre settled. Then I'll
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 157 
 
 thry the other plan, for it's good to thry anything that could 
 take us out of this disgraceful life." 
 
 This humble speculation was a source of great comfort to 
 them. Many a time have they forgotten their sorrows in 
 contemplating the simple picture of their happy little cottage. 
 Kathleen, in particular, drew with all the vivid colouring of a 
 tender mother and an affectionate wife the various sources of 
 comfort and contentment to be found even in a cabin, whose 
 inmates are blessed with a love of independence, industry, and 
 mutual affection. 
 
 Owen, in pursuance of his intention, did not neglect, when 
 the proper season arrived, to place out his eldest children 
 among the farmers. The reader need not be told that there 
 was that about him which gained respect. He had, therefore, 
 little trouble in obtaining his wishes on this point, and, to his 
 great satisfaction, he saw three of them hired out to earn their 
 own support. 
 
 It was now a matter of some difficulty for him to take a cabin 
 and get employment. They had not a single article of 
 furniture, and neither bed nor bedding, with the exception of 
 blankets almost worn past use. He was resolved, however, to 
 give up, at all risks, the life of a mendicant. For this purpose he 
 and his wife agreed to adopt a plan quite usual in Ireland 
 under circumstances somewhat different from his : this was that 
 Kathleen should continue to beg for their support until the first 
 half-year of their children's service should expire; and in the 
 meantime that he, if possible, should secure employment for 
 himself. By this means his earnings and those of his children 
 might remain untouched, so that in half a year he calculated 
 upon being able to furnish a cabin, and proceed, as a cottar, to 
 work for and support his young children and his wife, who 
 determined, on her part, not to be idle any more than her 
 husband. As the plan was a likely one, and as Owen was bent 
 on earning his bread rather than be a burthen to others, it is 
 unnecessary to say that it succeeded. In less than a year he 
 found himself once more in a home, and the force of what he 
 felt on sitting for the first time since his pauperism at his own 
 hearth may easily be conceived by the reader. For some years 
 after this Owen got on slowly enough, his wages as a daily 
 labourer being so miserable that it required him to exert every 
 nerve to keep the house over their head. What, however, 
 will not carefulness and a virtuous determination, joined to 
 indefatigable industry, do? 
 
 After some time, backed as he was by his wife, and even by 
 
 12
 
 158 TUBBER DERG ; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 his youngest children, he found himself beginning to improve. 
 In the mornings and the evenings he cultivated his garden and 
 his rood of potato ground. He also collected with a wheel- 
 barrow, which he borrowed from an acquaintance, compost 
 from the neighbouring road ; scoured an old drain before his 
 door ; dug rich earth, and tossed it into the pool of rotten water 
 beside the house, and, in fact, adopted several other modes of 
 collecting manure. By this means lie had, each spring, a large 
 portion of rich stuff on which to plant his potatoes. His land- 
 lord permitted him to spread this for planting upon his land ; 
 and Owen, ere long, instead of a rood, was able to plant half 
 an acre, and ultimately an acre of potatoes. The produce of 
 this being more than sufficient for the consumption of his 
 family, he sold the surplus, and with the money gained by the 
 sale was enabled to sow half an acre of oats, of which, when 
 made into meal, he disposed of the greater share. 
 
 Industry is capital ; for even when unaided by capital it 
 creates it, whereas idleness with capital produces only poverty 
 and ruin. Owen, after selling his meal and as much potatoes 
 as he could spare, found himself able to purchase a cow. Here 
 was means of making more manure ; he had also straw enough 
 for her provender during the winter. The cow, by affording 
 milk to his family, enabled them to live more cheaply ; her 
 butter they sold, and this, in addition to his surplus meal and 
 potatoes every year, soon made him feel that he had a few 
 guineas to spare. He now bethought him of another mode of 
 helping himself forward in the world. After buying the best 
 "slip" of a pig he could find a sty was built for her, and ere 
 long he saw a fine litter of young pigs within a snug shed. 
 These he reared until they were about two months old. when he 
 sold them, and found that he had considerably gained by the 
 transaction. This department, however, was under the manage- 
 ment of Kathleen, whose life was one of incessant activity and 
 employment. Owen's children, during the period of his struggles 
 and improvements, were, by his advice, multiplying their little 
 capital as fast as himself. The two boys, who had now shot up 
 into the stature of young men, were at work as labouring 
 servants in the neighbourhood. The daughters were also 
 engaged as servants with the adjoining farmers. The boys 
 bought each a pair of two-year-old heifers, and the daughters 
 one. These they sent to graze up in the mountains at a trifling 
 charge for the first year or two ; when they became springers 
 they put them to rich infield grass for a few months, until they 
 got a marketable appearance, after which their father brought
 
 TVBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 159 
 
 them to the neighbouring fairs, where they usually sold to 
 gre.it advantage, in consequence of the small outlay required in 
 rearing them. 
 
 In fact, the principle of industry ran through the family. 
 There was none of them idle, none of them a burthen or a 
 check upon the profits made by the labourer. On the contrary, 
 "they laid their shoulders together," as the phrase is, and 
 proved to the world that when the proper disposition is followed 
 up by suitable energy and perseverance, it must generally 
 reward him who possesses it. 
 
 It is certainly true that Owen's situation in life now was 
 essentially different from that which it had been during the 
 latter years of his struggles as a farmer. It was much more 
 favourable, and far better calculated to develop successful 
 exertion. If there be a class of men deserving public sympathy, 
 it is that of the small farmers of Ireland. Their circumstances 
 are fraught with all that is calculated to depress and ruin 
 them : rents far above their ability, increasing poverty, and bad 
 markets. The land, which during the last war might have 
 enabled the renter to pay three pounds per acre, and yet still 
 maintain himself with tolerable comfort, could not now pay 
 more than one pound, or, at the most, one pound ten ; and yet 
 such is the infatuation of landlords, that, in most instances, the 
 terms of leases taken out then are rigorously exacted. Neither 
 can the remission of yearly arrears be said to strike at the root 
 of the evils under which they suffer. The fact of the dispro- 
 portionate rent hanging over them is a disheartening circum- 
 stance that paralyses their exertion and sinks their spirits. If 
 a landlord remit the rent for one term, he deals more harshly 
 with the tenant at the next : whatever surplus, if any, his 
 former indulgence leaves in the tenant's hands, instead of being 
 expended upon his property as capital, and being permitted to 
 lay the foundation of hope and prosperity, is drawn from him 
 at next term, and the poor struggling tenant is thrown back 
 into as much distress, embarrassment, and despondency as 
 ever. There are, I believe, few tenants in Ireland of the class 
 I allude to who are not one gale to three in arrear. Now, how 
 can it be expected that such men will labour with spirit and 
 earnestness to raise crops which they may never reap ? crops 
 which the landlord may seize upon to secure as much of his 
 rent as he can. 
 
 We have known a case in which the arrears were not only 
 remitted, but the rent lowered to a reasonable standard, such 
 as, considering the markets, could be paid. And what was the
 
 i6o TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 consequence?" The tenant, who was looked upon as a negligent 
 man, from whom scarcely any rent could be got, took courage, 
 worked his farm with a spirit and success which he had not 
 evinced before, and ere long was in a capacity to pay his gales 
 to the very day ; so that the judicious and humane landlord was 
 finally a gainer by his own excellent economy. This was an 
 experiment, and it succeeded beyond expectation. 
 
 Owen M'Carthy did not work with more zeal and ability as a 
 humble cottar than he did when a farmer; but the tide was 
 against him as a landholder, and instead of having advanced, 
 he actually lost ground until he became a pauper. No doubt 
 the peculiarly unfavourable run of two hard seasons, darkened 
 by sickness and famine, were formidable obstacles to him ; but 
 he must eventually have failed, even had they not occurred. 
 They accelerated his downfall, but did not cause it. 
 
 The Irish people, though poor, are exceedingly anxious to be 
 independent. Their highest ambition is to hold a farm. So 
 strong is this principle in them that they will, without a single 
 penny of capital, or any visible means to rely on, without con- 
 sideration or forethought, come forward and offer a rent which, 
 if they reflected only for a moment, they must feel to be 
 unreasonably high. This, inJeed, is a great evil in Ireland. 
 But what, in the meantime, must we think of those imprudent 
 landlords, and their more imprudent agents, who let their land 
 to such persons, without proper inquiry into their means, know- 
 ledge of agriculture, and general character as moral and 
 industrious men. A farm of land is to be let ; it is advertised 
 through the parish ; application is to be made, before such a 
 day, to so and so. The day arrives, the agent or the land- 
 steward looks over the proposals, and after singling out the 
 highest bidder, declares him tenant, as a matter of course. 
 Now, perhaps this said tenant does not possess a shilling in the 
 world, nor a shilling's worth. Most likely he is a new-married 
 man, with nothing but his wife's bed and bedding, his wedding- 
 suit, and his blackthorn cudgel, which we may suppose him to 
 keep in reserve for the bailiff. However, he commences his 
 farm ; and then follow the shiftings, the scramblings, and the 
 fruitless struggles to succeed where success is impossible. His 
 farm is not half tilled ; his crops are miserable ; the gale day 
 has already passed, yet he can pay nothing until he takes it out 
 of the land. Perhaps he runs away makes a moonlight flitting 
 and, by the aid of his friends, succeeds in bringing the crop 
 wilh him. The landlord or agent declares he is a knave, for- 
 getting that the man had no other alternative, and that they
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 161 
 
 were the greater knaves, and fools too, for encouraging him to 
 undertake a task that was beyond his strength. 
 
 In calamity we are anxious to derive support from the 
 sympathy of our friends ; in our success we are eager to 
 communicate to them the power of participating in our happi- 
 ness. When Owen once more found himself independent and 
 safe, he longed to realise two plans on which he had some time 
 before been seriously thinking. The first was to visit his 
 former neighbours, that they might at length know that Owen 
 McCarthy's station in the world was such as became his 
 character. The second was, if possible, to take a farm in his 
 native parish, that he might close his days among the com- 
 panions of his youth and the friends of his maturer years. He 
 had also another motive : there lay the burying-place of the 
 M'Carthys, in which slept the mouldering dust of his own 
 "golden-haired" Alley. With them in his daughter's grave 
 he intended to sleep his long sleep. Affection for the dead is 
 the memory of the heart. In no other graveyard could he 
 reconcile it to himself to be buried ; to it had all his forefathers 
 been gathered ; and though calamity had separated him from 
 the scenes where they had passed through existence, yet he 
 was resolved that death should not deprive him of its last 
 melancholy consolation that of reposing with all that remained 
 of the "departed, 1 ' who had loved him, and whom he had loved. 
 He believed that to neglect this would be to abandon a sacred 
 duty, and felt sorrow at the thought of being like an absent 
 guest from the assembly of his own dead ; for there is a 
 principle of undying hope in the heart that carries, with bold 
 and beautiful imagery, the realities of life into the silent 
 recesses of death itself. 
 
 Having formed the resolution of visiting his old friends at 
 Tubber Derg, he communicated it to Kathleen and his family ; 
 his wife received the intelligence with undisguised delight. 
 
 "Owen," she replied, "indeed I'm glad you mintioned it. 
 Many a time the thoughts of our place, an' the people about it, 
 comes over me. I know, Owen, it'll go to your heart to see it ; 
 but still, avourneen, you'd like, too, to see the ould faces an' the 
 warm hearts of them that pitied us an' helped us, as well as they 
 could, when we war broken down." 
 
 " I would, Kathleen ; but I'm not goin' merely to see thim an' 
 the place. I intind, if I can, to take a bit of land somewhere 
 near Tubber Derg. I'm unasy in my mind, for fraid I'd not 
 sleep in the graveyard where a'l belongin' to me lie." 
 
 A chord of the mother's heart was touched, and in a moment
 
 1 62 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 the memory of their beloved child brought the tears to her 
 eyes. 
 
 " Owen, avourneen, I have one requist to ax of you, and I'm 
 sure you won't refuse it to me. If 1 die afore you, let me be 
 buried wid Alley. Who has a right to sleep so near her as her 
 own mother ? " 
 
 "The child's in my heart still," said Owen, suppressing his 
 emotion ; "thinkin' of the unfortunate mornin' I wint to Dublin 
 brings her back to me. I see her standin', wid her fair, pale 
 face pale oh, my God! wid hunger an' sickness her little 
 thin clo'es an* her golden hair tossed about by the dark blast 
 the tears in her eyes, an' the smile that she once had on her 
 face houldin' up her mouth, an' sayin', ' Kiss me agin, father,' 
 as if she knew, somehow, that I'd never see her, nor her me, 
 any more An' whin I looked back, as I was turnin' the corner, 
 there she stood, strainin' her eyes afther her father, that she was 
 then takin' the last sight of until the judgment day !" 
 
 His voice here became broken, and he sat in silence for a few 
 minutes. 
 
 " It's sthrange," he added, with more firmness, " how she's so 
 often in my mind." 
 
 " But, Owen dear," replied Kathleen, " sure it was the will of 
 God that she should lave us. She's now a bright angel in 
 heaven, an' I dunna if it's right indeed, I doubt it's sinful for 
 us to think so much about her. Who knows but her innocent 
 spirit is makin' intercession for us all before the blessed 
 Mother o' God ! Who knows but it was her that got us the 
 good fortune that flowed in upon us, an' that made our strugglin' 
 an' our labourin' turn out so lucky!" 
 
 The idea of being lucky or unlucky is, in Ireland, an enemy 
 to industry. It is certainly better that the people should believe 
 success in life to be, as it is, the result of virtuous exertion, than 
 of contingent circumstances over which they themselves have 
 no control. Still, there was something beautiful in the supersti- 
 tion of Kathleen's affections something that touched the heart 
 and its dearest associations. 
 
 " It's very true, Kathleen," replied her husband ; " but God 
 is ever ready to help them that keeps an honest heart, an' do 
 everything in their power to live creditably. They may fail for 
 a time, or he may thry them for a while, but sooner or later 
 good intintions and honest labour will be rewarded. Look at 
 ourselves blessed be his name I " 
 
 " But whin do you mane to go to Tubber Derg, Owen ? " 
 
 " In the beginnin' of the next week. An' Kathleen, ahagur,
 
 TUB BE R DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 163 
 
 if you remimber the bitther mornin' we came upon the world 
 but we'll not be spakin' of that now. I don't like to think of it. 
 Some other time, maybe, when we're settled among our ould 
 friends, I'll mintion it." 
 
 " Well, the Lord bliss your endayvours, anyhow ! Och, 
 Owen, do thry an' get us a snug farm somewhere near them. 
 But you didn't answer me about Alley, Owen." 
 
 "Why, you must have your wish, Kathleen, although I 
 intended to keep that place for myself. Still, we can sleep one 
 on aich side of her; an' that may be asily done, for our buryin' 
 ground is large : so set your mind at rest on that head. I hope 
 God won't call us till we see our childhre settled dacently in the 
 world. But sure, at all evints, let his blessed will be done ! " 
 
 " Amin ! amin ! It's not right of any one to keep their hearts 
 fixed too much upon the world ; nor even, they say, upon one's 
 own childhre." 
 
 " People may love their childhre as much as they plase, 
 Kathleen, if they don't let their grah for them spoil the 
 crathurs, by givin' them their own will till they become head- 
 strong an' overbearin'. Now, let my linen be as white as a 
 bone before Monday, plase goodness; I hope by that time 
 that Jack Dogherty will have my new clo'es made ; for I intind 
 to go as dacent as ever they seen me in my best days." 
 
 "An' so you will too, avillish. Throth, Owen, it's you that'll 
 be the proud man, steppin' in to them in all your grandeur ! 
 Ha, ha, ha! The spirit o' the M'Carthys is in you still, Owen." 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha ! It is, darlin' it is, indeed ; an' I'd be sarry it 
 wasn't. I long to see poor Widow Murray. I dunna is her 
 son Jimmy married. Who knows, afther all we suffered, but 
 I might be able to help her yet ? that is, if she stands in need 
 of it. But I suppose her childhre's grown up now, an' able 
 to assist her. Now, Kathleen, mind Monday next ; an' have 
 everything ready. I'll stay away a week or so at the most, an' 
 afther that I'll have news for you about all o' them." 
 
 When Monday morning arrived, Owen found himself ready 
 to set out for Tubber Derg. The tailor had not disappointed 
 him ; and Kathleen, to do her justice, took care that the proofs 
 of her good housewifery should be apparent in the whiteness 
 of his linen. After breakfast he dressed himself in all his 
 finery ; and it would be difficult to say whether the harmless 
 vanity that peeped out occasionally from his simplicity of 
 character, or the open and undisguised triumph of his faithful 
 wife, whose eye rested on him with pride and affection, was 
 most calculated to produce a smile.
 
 1 64 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 " Now, Kathleen," said he, when preparing for his immediate 
 departure, " I'm thinkin' of what they'll say when they see me 
 so smooth an' warm lookin'. I'll engage they'll be axin' one 
 another, ' Musha, how did Owen M'Carthy get an at all, to be 
 so well to do in the world as he appears to be, afther failin' on 
 his ould farm?'" 
 
 " Well, but Owen, you know how to manage them." 
 
 " Throth, I do that. But there's one thing they'll nevei get 
 out o' me, anyway." 
 
 " You won't tell that to any o' them, Owen ? " 
 
 " Kathleen, if I thought they only suspected it, I'd never 
 show my face in Tubber Derg agin. I think I could bear to 
 be an' yet it ud be a hard struggle wid me too but I think I 
 could bear to be buried among black strangers, rather than it 
 should be said over my grave, among my own, ' There's where 
 Owen M'Carthy lies who was the only man of his name that 
 ever begged his morsel on the king's highway. There he lies, 
 the descendant of the great M'Carthy Mores, an' yet he was a 
 beggar.' I know, Kathleen achora, it's neither a sin nor a 
 shame to ax one's bit from our fellow-creatures, whin fairly 
 brought to it, widout any fault of our own ; but still I feel some- 
 thing in me that can't bear to think of it widout shame an' 
 heaviness of heart." 
 
 " Well, it's one comfort that nobody knows it but ourselves. 
 The poor childhre, for their own sakes, won't ever breathe it ; 
 so that it's likely the sacret '11 be betrid wid us." 
 
 " I hope so, acushla. Does this coat sit asy atween the 
 shouldhers ? I feel it catch me a little." 
 
 "The sorra nicer. There; it was only your waistcoat that 
 was turned down in the collar. Here hould your arm. There 
 now it wanted to be pulled down a little at the cuffs. Owen, 
 it's a beauty ; an' I think I have good right to be proud out of it, 
 for it's every thread my own spinnin'." 
 
 "How do I look in it, Kathleen? Tell me thruth, now." 
 
 " Throth, you're twenty years younger ; the never a day less." 
 
 " I think I needn't be ashamed to go afore my ould friends in 
 it, anyway. Now bring me my staff from undherthe bed above, 
 an' in the name o' God I'll set out." 
 
 "Which o' them, Owen? Is it the oak or the black- 
 thorn ? " 
 
 " The oak, acushla. Oh, no ; not the blackthorn. It's it that 
 I brought to Dublin wid me, the unlucky thief, an' that I had 
 while we wor a shaughran. Divil a one o' me but ud blush in 
 the face if I brought it even in my hand afore them. The oak,
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 165 
 
 ahagur ; the oak. You'll get it atween the foot o' the bed an' 
 the wall." 
 
 When Kathleen placed the staff in his hand, he took off his 
 hat and blessed himself, then put it on, looked at his wife, and 
 said : " Now, darlin', in the name o' God, I'll go. Husht, avillish 
 machree, don't be cryin'; sure I'll be back to you in a 
 week." 
 
 " Och ! I can't help it, Owen. Sure this is the second time 
 you war ever away from me more nor a day ; an' I'm thinkin' of 
 what happened both to you an' me the first time you winL 
 Owen, acushla, I feel that if anything happened you, I'd break 
 my heart." 
 
 " Arrah, what ud happen me, darlin', wid God to protect me? 
 Now, God be wid you, Kathleen dheelish, till I come back to 
 you wid good news, I hope. I'm not goin' in sickness an' 
 misery, as I wint afore, to see a man that wouldn't hear my 
 appale to him ; an' I'm lavin' you comfortable, agrah, an' 
 wantin' for nothin'. Sure it's only about five-an'-twenty miles 
 from this a mere step. The good God bless an' take care of 
 you, my darlin' wife, till I come home to you ! " 
 
 He kissed the tears that streamed from her eyes ; and, 
 hemming several times, pressed her hand, his face rather 
 averted, then grasped his staff, and commenced his journey. 
 
 Scenes like this were important events to our humble couple. 
 Life, when untainted by the crimes and artificial manners 
 which destroy its purity, is a beautiful thing to contemplate 
 among the virtuous poor ; and where the current of affection 
 runs deep and smooth, the slightest incident will agitate it. So 
 was it with Owen M'Carthy and his wife. Simplicity, truth, 
 and affection constituted their character. In them there was 
 no complication of incongruous elements. The order of their 
 virtues was not broken, nor the purity of their affections 
 violated, by the anomalous blending together of opposing 
 principles, such as are to be found in those who are involuntarily 
 contaminated by the corruption of human society. 
 
 Owen had not gone far when Kathleen called to him, 
 "Owen, ahagur stand, darlin'; but don't come back a step, 
 for fraid o' bad luck." 1 
 
 "Did I forget anything, Kathleen?" he inquired. "Let me 
 see : no ; sure I have my beads an' my tobaccy-box, an' my 
 
 1 When an Irish peasant sets out on a journey, or to transact 
 business in a fair or market, he will not, if possible, turn back. It is 
 considered unlucky ; as it is also to be crossed by a hare, or met by a 
 red haired woman
 
 1 66 TUBBER DERG , OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 two clane shirts an' hankerchers in the bundle. What is it, 
 acushla ? " 
 
 " I needn't be axin' you, for I know you wouldn't forget it ; 
 but for fraid you might, Owen, whin you're at Tubber Derg, go 
 to little Alley's grave, an' look at it ; an' bring me back word 
 how it appears. You might get it cleaned up, if there's weeds or 
 anything growin' upon it ; and, Owen, would you bring me a bit 
 o' the clay, tied up in your pocket ? Whin you're there spake to 
 her ; tell her it was the lovin' mother that bid you, an' say 
 anything that you'd think might keep her asy an' give her 
 pleasure. Tell her we're not now as we wor whin she was 
 wid us ; that we don't feel hunger, nor cowld, nor want ; 
 an' that nothin' is a throuble to us, barrin' that we miss 
 her ay, even yet a suillish machree 1 that she was that we 
 miss her fair face an' goolden head from among us. Tell her 
 this ; an' tell her it was the lovin' mother that said it, an' that 
 sint the message to her." 
 
 " I'll do it all, Kathleen ; I'll do it all all. An' now go in, 
 darlin', an' don't be frettin'. Maybe we'll soon be near her, 
 plase God, where we can see the place she sleeps in often." 
 
 They then separated again ; and Owen, considerably affected 
 by the maternal tenderness of his wife, proceeded on his journey. 
 He had not actually, even at the period of his leaving home, 
 been able to determine on what particular friend he should first 
 call That his welcome would be hospitable, nay, enthusiastically 
 so, he was certain. In the meantime he vigorously pursued his 
 journey ; and partook neither of refreshment nor rest until he 
 arrived, a little after dusk, at a turn of the well-known road, 
 which, had it been daylight, would have opened to him a view 
 of Tubber Derg. He looked towards the beeches, however, 
 under which it stood ; but to gain a sight of it was impossible. 
 His road now lying a little to the right, he turned to the house 
 of his sterling friend, Frank Farrell, who had given him and his 
 family shelter and support when he was driven, without remorse, 
 from his own holding. In a short time he reached Frank's 
 residence, and felt a glow of sincere satisfaction at finding the 
 same air of comfort and warmth about it as formerly. Through 
 the kitchen window he saw the strong light of the blazing fire, 
 and heard, ere he presented himself, the loud hearty laugh of 
 his friend's wife, precisely as light and animated as it had been 
 fifteen years before. 
 
 Owen lifted the latch and entered, with that fluttering of the 
 
 1 Light of my heart.
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 167 
 
 pulse which every man feels on meeting with a friend after an 
 interval of many years. 
 
 " Musha, good people, can yees tell me is Frank Farrell at 
 home?" 
 
 " Why, thin, he's not jist widin now, but he'll be here in no 
 time entirely," replied one of his daughters. "Won't you sit 
 down, honest man, an' we'll sind for him?" 
 
 " I'm thankful to you," said Owen. " I'll sit, sure enough, till 
 he comes in." 
 
 " Why, thin ! eh ! it must it can be no other ! " exclaimed 
 FarrelFs wife, bringing over a candle and looking Owen 
 earnestly in the face ; " sure, I'd know that voice all the world 
 over ! Why, thin, marciful Father Owen M'Carthy Owen 
 M'Carthy, is it your four quarthers that's livin' an' well ? Queen 
 o' heaven, Owen M'Carthy, darlin', you're welcome ! " the word 
 was here interrupted by a hearty kiss from the kind housewife 
 " welcome a thousand an' a thousand times ! Vick na hoiah! 
 Owen, dear, an' are you livin' at all ? An' Kathleen, Owen, an' 
 the childhre, an' all of yees an' how are they?" 
 
 " Throth, we're livin' an' well, Bridget ; never was betther, 
 thanks be to God an' you, in our lives." 
 
 Owen was now surrounded by such of Farrell's children as 
 were old enough to remember him, every one of whom he shook 
 hands with and kissed. 
 
 "Why, thin, the Lord save my sowl, Bridget," said he, "are 
 these the little bouchaleens an' colleens that were runnin' about 
 my feet whin I was here afore ? Well to be sure ! how they do 
 shoot up ! An' is this Atty ? '' 
 
 " No ; but this is Atty, Owen ; faix, Brian outgrew him ; an* 
 here's Mary, an' this is Bridget Oge." 
 
 " Well ! well 1 But where did these two young shoots come 
 from, this boy an' the colleen here? They worn't to the fore in 
 my time, Bridget." 
 
 " This is Owen, called afther yourself an' this is Kathleen. 
 I needn't tell you who she was called afther." 
 
 " Gutsho, alanna f thurm poguef come here, child, and kiss 
 me," said Owen to his little namesake ; " an' sure I can't forget 
 the little woman here ; gutsho, a colleen, and kiss me too." 
 
 Owen took her on his knee and kissed her twice. 
 
 " Och, but poor Kathleen," said he, " will be the proud 
 woman of this when she hears it; in throth she will be that." 
 
 "Arrah! what's comin' over me?" said Mrs. FarrelL 
 " Brian, run up to Micky Lowrie's for your father. An' see, 
 Brian, don't say who's wantin' him till we give him a start.
 
 1 68 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 Mary, come here, acushla," she added to her eldest daughter in 
 a whisper "take these two bottles, an' fly up to Peggy 
 Finigan's for the full o' them o' whisky. Now be back before 
 you're there, or if you don't, that I mightn't, but you'll see what 
 you'll get. Fly, aroon, an' don't let the grass grow undher your 
 feet. An' Owen, darlin' but first sit over to the fire here, get 
 over to this side, it's the snuggest ; arrah, Owen an' sure I 
 dunna what to ax you first. You're all well ? all to the fore ?" 
 
 " All well, Bridget, an' thanks be to heaven, all to the fore." 
 
 " Glory be to God I Throth, it warms my heart to hear it. 
 An' the childhre's all up finely, boys an' girls ?' 
 
 " Throth, they are, Bridget, as good-lookin' a family o' 
 childhre as you'd wish to see. An' what is betther, they're as 
 good as they're good-lookin'." 
 
 " Throth, they couldn't but be that if they tuck at all afther 
 their father an' mother. Bridget, aroon, rub the pan betther - 
 an' lay the knife down, I'll cut the bacon myself, but go an' get 
 a dozen o' the freshest eggs. An' Kathleen, Owen, how does 
 poor Kathleen look? Does she stand it as well as yourself? " 
 
 "As young as ever you seen her. God help her ! a thousand 
 degrees betther now nor whin you seen her last." 
 
 " An' well to do, Owen ? now tell the truth ! Och, musha, I 
 forget who I'm spakin' to, or I wouldn't disremimber the ould 
 sayin' that's abroad this many a year : Who ever knew a 
 M'Carthy of Tubber Derg to tell a lie, break his word, or refuse 
 to help a friend in distress? But, Owen, you're well to do in the 
 world ? " 
 
 " We're as well, Bridget, or may be betther, nor you ever 
 knew us, except, indeed, afore the ould lase was run out wid 
 us." 
 
 " God be praised agin ! Musha, turn round a little, Owen, 
 for fraid Frank ud get too clear a sight of your face at first. 
 Arrah, do you think he'll know you? Och, to be sure he will; 
 I needn't ax. Your voice would tell upon you, any day." 
 
 " Know me ! Indeed, Frank ud know my shadow. He'll 
 know me wid half a look." 
 
 And Owen was right, for quickly did the eye of his old friend 
 recognise him, despite of the little plot that was laid to try his 
 penetration. To describe their interview would be to repeat the 
 scene we have already attempted to depict between Owen and 
 Mrs. Farrell. No sooner were the rites of hospitality performed 
 than the tide of conversation began to flow with greater freedom. 
 Owen ascertained one important fact, which we will here men- 
 tion, because it produces in a great degree the want of anything
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL 169 
 
 like an independent class of yeomanry in the country. On 
 inquiring after his old acquaintances, he discovered that a great 
 number of them, owing to high rents, had emigrated to America. 
 They belonged to that class of independent farmers who, after 
 the expiration of their old leases, finding the little capital which 
 they had saved beginning to diminish in consequence of rents 
 which they could not pay, deemed it more prudent, while 
 anything remained in their hands, to seek a country where 
 capital and industry might be made available. Thus did the 
 landlords, by their mismanagement and neglect, absolutely 
 drive off their estates the only men who, if properly encouraged, 
 were capable of becoming the strength and pride of the country. 
 It is this system, joined to the curse of middlemen and sub- 
 letting, which has left the country without any third grade of 
 decent, substantial yeomen, who might stand as a bond of peace 
 between the highest and the lowest classes. It is this which has 
 split the kingdom into two divisions, constituting the extreme 
 ends of society the wealthy and the wretched. If this third 
 class existed, Ireland would neither be so political nor discon- 
 tented as she is ; but, on the contrary, more remarkable for peace 
 and industry. At present, the lower classes, being too poor, are 
 easily excited by those who promise them a better order of 
 things than that which exists. These theorists step into the 
 exercise of that legitimate influence which the landed proprietors 
 have lost by their neglect. There is no middle class in the 
 country who can turn round to them and say, " Our circum- 
 stances are easy, we want nothing ; carry your promises to the 
 poor, for that which you hold forth to their hopes we enjoy in 
 reality." The poor soldier who, because he was wretched, 
 volunteered to go on the forlorn hope made a fortune ; but 
 when asked if he would go on a second enterprise of a similar 
 kind, shrewdly replied, " General, I am no'uu an independent 
 man ; send some poor devil on your forlorn hope who wants to 
 make a fortune." 
 
 Owen now heard anecdotes and narratives of all occurrences, 
 whether interesting or strange, that had taken place during his 
 absence. Among others was the death of his former landlord, 
 and the removal of the agent who had driven him to beggary. 
 Tubber Derg, he found, was then the property of a humane and 
 considerate man, who employed a judicious and benevolent 
 gentleman to manage it. 
 
 " One thing I can tell you," said Frank : " it was but a short 
 time in the new agent's hands when the dacent farmers stopped 
 goin' to America."
 
 170 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 " But, Frank," said Owen, and he sighed on putting the 
 question, " who is in Tubber Derg now ? " 
 
 " Why, thin, a son of ould Rousin' Redhead's, of Tullyvernon 
 young Con Roe, or the Ace o' Hearts for he was called both 
 by the youngsters if you remimber him. His head's as red, 
 an' double as big even, as his father's was, an' you know that 
 no hat would fit ould Con until he sent his measure to Jimmy 
 Lamb, the hatter. Dick Nugent put it out on him that Jimmy 
 always made Rousin' Redhead's hat either upon the half- 
 bushel pot or a five gallon keg of whisky. ' Talkin' of the 
 keg,' says Dick, 'for the matther o' that,' says he, 'divil a much 
 differ the hat will persave ; for the one' meaning ould Con's 
 head, who was a hard drinker ' the one,' says Dick, ' is as 
 much a keg as the other ha 1 ha ! ha ! ' Dick met Rousin : 
 Redhead another day. ' Arrah, Con,' says he, ' why do you get 
 your hats made upon a pot, man alive? Sure that's the rason 
 that you're so fond o'/0/een. : A quare mad crathur was Dick, 
 an' would go forty miles for a fight. Poor fellow, he got his 
 skull broke in a skrimmage betwixt the Redmonds and the 
 O'Hanlons ; an' his last words were, ' Bad luck to you, Red- 
 mond O'Hanlon, I never thought you, above all men, dead 
 an' gone, would be the death o' me.' Poor fellow 1 he was for 
 pacifyin' them, for a wondher ; but instead o' that, he got 
 pacified himself." 
 
 "An' how is young Con doin', Frank?" 
 
 " Hut, divil a much time he has to do aither well or ill yit. 
 There was four tenants on Tubber Derg since you left it, an ! 
 he's the fifth. It's hard to say how he'll do ; but 1 believe he's 
 the best o' thim for so far. That may be owin' to the landlord. 
 The rent's let down to him ; an' I think he'll be able to take 
 bread, an' good bread too, out of it." 
 
 " God send, poor man ! " 
 
 "Now, Owen, would you like to go back to it ?" 
 
 " I can't say that. I love the place, but I suffered too much in 
 it. No ; but I'll tell you, Frank, if there was e'er a snug farm 
 near it that I could get rasonable, I'd take it." 
 
 Frank slapped his knee exultingly. " Ma chuirp f do you 
 say so, Owen ? " 
 
 " Indeed I do." 
 
 "Thin, upon my song, that's the luckiest thing I ever knew. 
 There's this blessed minute a farm o' sixteen acres that the 
 Lacys is lavin' goin' to America an' it's to be set They'll go 
 the week afther next, an' the house needn't be cowld, for you 
 can come to it the very day afther they lave it."
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 171 
 
 "Well," said Owen, " I'm glad of that. Will you come wid 
 me to-morrow, an' we'll see about it ?" 
 
 " To be sure I will ; an' what's betther, too, the agint is a son 
 of ould Misther Rogerson's, a man that knows you an" the 
 history o' them you came from well. An' another thing, Owen 1 
 I tell you, whin it's abroad that you want to take the farm, 
 there's not a man in the parish would bid agin you. You may 
 know that yourself." 
 
 " I think, indeed, they would rather serve me than otherwise," 
 replied Owen ; "an" in the name o' God, we'll see what can be 
 done. Misther Rogerson himself ud spake to his son for me, 
 so that I'll be sure of his intherest. Arrah, Frank, how is an 
 ould frind o' mine, that I have a great regard for poor Widow 
 Murray ?" 
 
 " Widow Murray ! Poor woman, shs happy." 
 
 "You don't mane she's dead?" 
 
 " She's dead, Owen, and happy, I trust, in the Saviour. She 
 died last spring was a two years." 
 
 " God be good to her sovvl ! An' are the childhre in her 
 place still ? It's she that was the dacent woman." 
 
 " Throth, they are ; an' sorrow a betther doin' family in the 
 parish than they are. It's they that'll be glad to see you, Owen. 
 Many a time I seen their poor mother, heavens be her bed, 
 lettin' down the tears whin she used to be spakin' of you, or 
 mintionin' how often you sarved her ; espishially about some 
 day or other that you previnted her cows from bein' canted for 
 the rint. She's dead now, an' God he knows an honest, 
 hard-workin' woman she ever was." 
 
 "Dear me, Frank, isn't it a wondher to think how the people 
 dhrop off ! There's Widow Murray, one o' my ouldest frinds, 
 an' Pether M'Mahon, an' Barny Lorinan not to forget pleasant 
 Rousin' Redhead all taken away ! Well ! well ! Sure it's 
 the will o' God ! We can't, be here always." 
 
 After much conversation, enlivened by the bottle, though but 
 sparingly used on the part of Owen, the hour of rest arrived, 
 when the family separated for the night. 
 
 The grey dawn of a calm, beautiful summer's morning found 
 Owen up and abroad long before the family of honest Frank 
 had risen. When dressing himself, with an intention of taking 
 an early walk, he was asked by his friend why he stirred so 
 soon, or if he his host should accompany him. 
 
 " No," replied Owen ; " lie still ; jist let me look over the 
 country while it's asleep. Whin I'm musin' this a-way I don't 
 like anybody to be along wid me. I have a place to go an' see,
 
 172 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 too an' a message a tendher message, from poor Kathleen, 
 to deliver, that I wouldn't wish a second person to hear. Sleep, 
 Frank. I'll jist crush the head o' my pipe agin one o' the half- 
 burned turf that the fire was raked wid, an' walk out for an hour or 
 two. Afther our breakfast we'll go an' look about this new farm." 
 He sallied out as he spoke, and closed the door after him in 
 that quiet, thoughtful way for which he was ever remarkable. 
 The season was midsummer, and the morning wanted at least 
 an hour of sunrise. Owen ascended a little knoll above 
 Frank's house, on which he stood and surveyed the surrounding 
 country with a pleasing but melancholy interest. As his eye 
 rested on Tubber Derg, he felt the difference strongly between 
 the imperishable glories of nature's works and those which are 
 executed by man. His house he would not have known, except 
 by its site. It was not, in fact, the same house, but another 
 which had been built in its stead. This disappointed and 
 vexed him. An object on which his affections had been placed 
 was removed. A rude stone house stood before him, rough 
 and unplastered, against each end of which was built a stable 
 and cow-house, sloping down from the gables to low doors at 
 both sides ; adjoining these rose two mounds of filth, large 
 enough to be easily distinguished from the knoll on which he 
 stood. He sighed as he contrasted it with the neat and 
 beautiful farm-house which shone there in his happy days, 
 white as a lily, beneath the covering of the lofty beeches. 
 There was no air of comfort, neatness, or independence about 
 it ; on the contrary, everything betrayed the evidence of struggle 
 and difficulty, joined, probably, to want both of skill and of 
 capital. He was disappointed, and turned his gaze upon the 
 general aspect of the country, and the houses in which either 
 his old acquaintances or their children lived. The features of 
 the landscape were certainly the same ; but even here was a 
 change for the worse. The warmth of colouring which wealth 
 and independence give to the appearance of a cultivated country 
 was gone. Decay and coldness seemed to brood upon every- 
 thing he saw. The houses, the farmyards, the ditches, and 
 enclosures were all marked by the blasting proofs of national 
 decline. Some exceptions there were to this disheartening 
 prospect ; but they were only sufficient to render the torn and 
 ragged evidences of poverty and its attendant carelessness 
 more conspicuous. He left the knoll, knocked the ashes out of 
 his pipe, and, putting it into his waistcoat pocket, ascended a 
 larger hill, which led to the graveyard where his child lay 
 buried. On his way to this hill, which stood about half a mile
 
 TUB BE R DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 173 
 
 distant, he passed a few houses of a humble description, with 
 whose inhabitants he had been well acquainted. Some of 
 these stood nearly as he remembered them ; but others were 
 roofless, with their dark mud gables either fallen in or partially 
 broken down. He surveyed their smoke-coloured walls with 
 sorrow ; and looked, with a sense of the transient character of 
 all man's works, upon the chickweed, docks, and nettles which 
 had shot up so rankly on the spot where many a chequered 
 scene of joy and sorrow had flitted over the circumscribed 
 circle of humble life, ere the annihilating wing of ruin swept 
 away them and their habitations. 
 
 When he had ascended the hill his eye took a wider range. 
 The more distant and picturesque part of the country lay 
 before him. " Ay ! " said he, in a soliloquy, " Lord bless us, 
 how sthrange is this world ! an' what poor crathurs are men ! 
 There's the dark mountains, the hills, the rivers, an' the green 
 glens, all the same ; an' nothin' else a'most but's changed ! 
 The very song of that blackbird in thim thorn-bushes an' 
 hazels below me is like the voice of an ould friend to my ears. 
 Och, indeed, hardly that, for even the voice of man changes ; 
 but that song is the same as I heard it for the best part o' my 
 life. That mornin' star, too, is the same bright crathur up there 
 that it ever was ! God help us ! Hardly anything changes 
 but man, an' he seems to think that he can never change, if 
 one is to judge by his thoughtlessness, folly, an' wickedness I " 
 
 A smaller hill, around the base of which went the same 
 imperfect road that crossed the glen of Tubber Derg, prevented 
 him from seeing the graveyard to which he was about to extend 
 his walk. To this road he directed his steps. On reaching it 
 he looked, still with a strong memory of former times, to the 
 glen in which his children, himself, and his ancestors had all, 
 during their day, played in the happy thoughtlessness of child- 
 hood and youth. But the dark and ragged house jarred upon 
 his feelings. He turned from it with pain, and his eyes rested 
 upon the still green valley with evident relief. He thought of 
 his " buried flower " " his goolden-haired darlin'," as he used 
 to call her and almost fancied that he saw her once more 
 wandering waywardly through its tangled mazes, gathering 
 berries, or strolling along the green meadow with a garland of 
 gowans about her neck. Imagination, indeed, cannot heighten 
 the image of the dead whom we love ; but even if it could, 
 there was no standard of ideal beauty in her father's mind 
 beyond that of her own. She had been beautiful, but her 
 beauty was pensive ; a fair yet melancholy child ; for the 
 
 13
 
 174 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 charm that ever encompassed her was one of sorrow and 
 tenderness. Had she been volatile and mirthful, as children 
 usually are, he would not have carried so far into his future 
 life the love of her which he cherished. Another reason why he 
 still loved her strongly was a consciousness that her death had 
 been occasioned by distress and misery ; for, as he said, when 
 looking upon the scenes of her brief but melancholy existence 
 "Avoutneen machree, I remimber to see you pickin' the 
 berries ; but asthore asthore it wasn't for play you did it ; 
 it was to keep away the cuttin' of hunger from your heart ! Of 
 all our childhre every one said that you wor the M'Carthy 
 never sayin' much, but the heart in you ever full of goodness 
 an* affection. God help me, I'm glad an' now that I'm comin' 
 near it, loth to see her grave." 
 
 He had now reached the verge of the graveyard. Its fine 
 old ruin stood there as usual, but not altogether without the 
 symptoms of change. Some persons had for the purposes of 
 building, thrown down one of its most picturesque walls. Still 
 its ruins clothed with ivy, its mullions moss-covered, its Gothic 
 arches and tracery grey with age, were the same in appearance 
 as he had ever seen them. 
 
 On entering this silent palace of death he reverently un- 
 covered his head, blessed himself, and, with feelings deeply 
 agitated, sought the grave of his beloved child. He approached 
 it ; but a sudden transition from sorrow to indignation took 
 place in his mind, even before he reached the spot on which 
 she lay. " Sacred Mother ! " he exclaimed, " who has dared to 
 bury in our ground ? Who has what villain has attimpted to 
 come in upon the M'Carthys upon the M'Carthy Mores, of 
 
 Tubber Derg? Who could had I no friend to prev eh? 
 
 Sacred Mother, what's this ? Father of Heaven, forgive me 1 
 Forgive me, sweet Saviour, for this bad feelin' I got into ! 
 Who who could raise a headstone over the darlin* o' my 
 heart widout one of us knowin' it ? Who who could do it ? 
 But let me see if I can make it out. Oh, who could do this 
 blessed thing for the poor an' the sorrowful ? " He began, and 
 with difficulty read as follows : 
 
 " Here lies the body of Alice M'Carthy, the beloved daughter of 
 Owen and Kathleen M'Carthy, aged nine years. She was descended 
 from the M'Carthy Mores. 
 
 " Requiescat in pace. 
 "This headstone was raised over her by Widow Murray and her
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 175 
 
 son, James Murray, out of grateful respect for Owen and Kathleen 
 M'Carthy, who never suffered the widow and orphan, or a distressed 
 neighbour, to crave assistance from them in vain, until it pleased God 
 to visit them with affliction." 
 
 " Thanks to you, my Saviour 1 " said Owen, dropping on his 
 knees over the grave. " Thanks an" praise be to your holy 
 name, that in the middle of my poverty of all my poverty I 
 was not forgotten ! nor my darlin' child let to lie widout honour 
 in the grave of her family ! Make me worthy, blessed Heaven, 
 of what is written down upon me here ! An' if the departed 
 spirit of her that honoured the dust of my buried daughter is 
 unhappy, oh, let her be relieved, an' let this act be remimbered 
 to her ! Bless her son, too, gracious Father, an' all belongin' 
 to her on this earth ! an', if it be your holy will, let them never 
 know distress, or poverty, or wickedness ! " 
 
 He then offered up a Pater-Noster for the repose of his 
 child's soul, and another for the kind-hearted and grateful 
 Widow Murray, after which he stood to examine the grave with 
 greater accuracy. 
 
 There was, in fact, no grave visible. The little mound, under 
 which lay what was once such a touching image of innocence, 
 beauty, and feeling, had sunk down to the level of the earth 
 about it. He regretted this, inasmuch as it took away, he 
 thought, part of her individuality. Still he knew it was the 
 spot wherein she had been buried, and with much of that vivid 
 feeling, and strong figurative language, inseparable from the 
 habits of thought and language of the old Irish families, he 
 delivered the mother's message to the inanimate dust of her 
 once beautiful and heart-loved child. He spoke in a broken 
 voice, for even the mention of her name aloud, over the clay 
 that contained her, struck with a fresh burst of sorrow upon 
 his heart. 
 
 "Alley," he exclaimed, in Irish, "Alley, nhien machree, your 
 father, that loved you more nor he loved any other human 
 crathur, brings a message to you from the mother of your heart, 
 avourneen ! She bid me call to see the spot where you're lyin', 
 my buried flower, an' to tell you that we're not now, thanks be to 
 God, as we wor whin you lived wid us. We are well to do now, 
 acushla oge machree, an' not in hunger, an' sickness, an' misery, 
 as we wor whin you suffered them all ! You will love to hear 
 this, pulse of our hearts, an' to know that, through all we suffered 
 an' bittherly we did suffer since you departed we never let 
 you out of our memory. No, asthore villish, we thought of 
 you, an' cried afther our poor dead flower, many and many's the
 
 176 TUBBER DERG ; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 time. An' she bid me tell you, darlin' of my heart, that we feel 
 nothin' now so much as that you are not wid us to share our 
 comfort an' our happiness. Oh, what wouldn't the mother give 
 to have you back wid her ; but it can't be an' what wouldn't 
 I give to have you before my eyes agin, in health an' in life 
 but it can't be. The lovin' mother sent this message to you, 
 Alley. Take it from her ; she bid me tell you that we are well 
 an' happy ; our name is pure, and, like yourself, widout spot or 
 stain. Won't you pray for us before God, an' get him an' his 
 blessed Mother to look on us wid favour and compassion ? 
 Farewell, Alley, asthore 1 May you sleep in peace, an' rest on 
 the breast of your great Father in heaven, until we all meet in 
 happiness together. It's your father that's spakin' to you, our 
 lost flower ; an' the hand that often smoothed your goolden 
 head is now upon your grave." 
 
 He wiped his eyes as he concluded, and after lifting a little 
 of the clay from her grave, he tied it carefully up and put it 
 into his pocket. 
 
 Having left the graveyard, he retraced his steps towards 
 Frank Farrell's house. The sun had now risen, and as Owen 
 ascended the larger of the two hills which we have mentioned, 
 he stood again to view the scene that stretched beneath him. 
 About an hour before all was still ; the whole country lay 
 motionless, as if the land had been a land of the dead. The 
 mountains in the distance were covered with the thin mists of 
 morning ; the milder and richer parts of the landscape had 
 appeared in that dim grey distinctness which gives to distant 
 objects such a clear outline. With the exception of the black- 
 bird's song, everything seemed as if stricken into silence ; 
 there was not a breeze stirring ; both animate and inanimate 
 nature reposed as if in a trance ; the very trees appeared 
 asleep, and their leaves motionless, as if they had been of 
 marble. But now the scene was changed. The sun had flung 
 his splendour upon the mountain-tops, from which the mists 
 were tumbling in broken fragments to the valleys between 
 them. A thousand birds poured their songs upon the ear ; the 
 breeze was up, and the columns of smoke from the farm-houses 
 and cottages played, as if in frolic, in the air. A white haze 
 was beginning to rise from the meadows, early teams were 
 afoot, and labourers going abroad to their employment. The 
 lakes in the distance shone like mirrors, and the clear springs 
 on the mountain sides glittered in the sun like gems on which 
 the eye could scarcely rest. Life and light and motion appear 
 to be inseparable. The dew of morning lay upon nature like
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 177 
 
 a brilliant veil, realising the beautiful image of Horace, as 
 applied to woman 
 
 " Vultus nimium lubricus aspici." 
 
 By-and-by the songs of the early workmen were heard ; nature 
 had awoke ; and Owen, whose heart was strongly, though uncon- 
 sciously, alive to the influence of natural religion, participated in 
 the general elevation of the hour, and sought with freshened 
 spirits the house of his entertainer. 
 
 As he entered this hospitable roof, the early industry of his 
 friend's wife presented him with a well-swept hearth and a 
 pleasant fire, before which had been placed the identical chair 
 that they had appropriated to his own use. Frank was enjoying 
 "a blast o' the pipe," after having risen, to which luxury the 
 return of Owen gave additional zest and placidity. In fact, 
 Owen's presence communicated a holiday spirit to the family a 
 spirit, too, which declined not for a moment during the period 
 of his visit 
 
 "Frank," said Owen, "to tell you the thruth, I'm not half 
 plased wid you this mornin' ! I think you didn't thrate me as I 
 ought to expect to be thrated." 
 
 " Musha, Owen M'Carthy, how is that ?" 
 " Why, you said nothin' about Widow Murray raisin' a head- 
 stone over our child. You kep' me in the dark there, Frank, 
 an' sich a start I never got as I did this mornin' in the grave- 
 yard beyant." 
 
 " Upon my sowl, Owen, it wasn't my fau't, nor any of our 
 fau'ts ; for, to tell you the thruth, we had so much to think and 
 discoorse of last night that it never sthruck me, good or 
 bad. Indeed, it was Bridget that put it first in my head, 
 afther you wint out, an' thin it was too late. Ay, poor 
 woman, the dacent strain was ever in her, the heavens be her 
 bed ! " 
 
 " Frank, if any one of her family was to abuse me till the 
 dogs wouldn't lick my blood, I'd only give them back good for 
 evil afther that. Oh, Frank, that goes to my heart ! To put a 
 headstone over my weeny goolden-haired darlin', for the sake of 
 the little thrifles I sarved thim in ! Well ! may none belong- 
 ing to her ever know poverty or hardship ! but if they do, an' 
 
 that I have it How-an'-iver, no matther. God bless thim ! 
 
 Wait till Kathleen hears it ! " 
 
 "An" the best of it was, Owen, that she never expected to see 
 one of your faces. But, Owen, you think too much about that
 
 178 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 child. Let us talk of something else. You seen Tubber Derg 
 wanst more." 
 
 " I did ; an' I love it still, in spi'.e of the state it's in." 
 
 " Ah ! it's different from what it was in your happy days. I 
 was spakin' to Bridget about the farm, an' she advises us to go, 
 widout losin' a minute, an' take it if we can." 
 
 " It's near this place I'll die, Frank. I'd not rest in my grave 
 if I wasn't berrid among my own ; so we'll take the farm if 
 possible." 
 
 " Well, then, Bridget, hurry the breakfast, avourneen ; an' in 
 the name o' goodness, we'll set out, an' clinch the business this 
 very day." 
 
 Owen, as we said, was prompt in following up his determina- 
 tions. After breakfast they saw the agent and his father, 
 for both lived together. Old Rogerson had been intimately 
 acquainted with the M'Carthys, and, as Frank bad anticipated, 
 used his influence with the agent in procuring for the 
 son of his old friend and acquaintance the farm which he 
 sought. 
 
 " Jack," said the old gentleman, " you don't probably know 
 the history and character of the Tubber Derg M'Carthys so 
 well as I do. No man ever required the written bond of a 
 M'Carthy ; and it was said of them, and is said still, that the 
 widow and orphan, the poor man or the stranger, never sought 
 their assistance in vain. I myself will go security, if necessary, 
 for Owen M'Carthy." 
 
 " Sir," replied Owen, " I'm thankful to you ; I'm grateful to 
 you. But I wouldn't take the farm, or bid for it at all, unless I 
 could bring forrid enough to stock it as I wish, an' to lay in all 
 that's wantin' to work it well. It ud be useless for me to take 
 it to struggle a year or two impoverish the land an' thin 
 run away out of it. No, no ; I have what'll put me upon it wid 
 dacency an' comfort." 
 
 " Then, since my father has taken such an interest in you, 
 M'Carthy, you must have the farm. We shall get leases prepared, 
 and the business completed, in a few days ; for I go to Dublin 
 on this day week. Father, I now remember the character of 
 this family ; and I remember, too, the sympathy which was felt 
 for one of them who was harshly ejected, about seventeen or 
 eighteen years ago, out of the lands on which his forefathers had 
 lived, I understand, for centuries." 
 
 " I am that man, sir," returned Owen. " It's too long a story 
 to tell now ; but it was only out o' part of the lands, sir, that I 
 was put. What I held was but a poor patch compared to what
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 179 
 
 the family held in my grandfather's time. A great part of it 
 went out of our hands at his death." 
 
 " It was very kind of you, Misther Rogerson, to offer to go 
 security for him," said Frank ; " but if security was wantin', sir, 
 I'd not be willin' to let anybody but myself back him. I'd go 
 all I'm worth in the world an', be my sow], double as much 
 for the same man." 
 
 " I know that, Frank, an' I thank you ; but I could put security 
 in Mr. Rogerson's hands here, if it was wanted. Good mornin', 
 an' tl.ank you both, gintlemen. To tell yees the thruth," he 
 added, with a smile, " I long to be among my ould friends 
 manin' the people, an' the hills, an' the green fields of Tubber 
 Derg agin ; an', thanks be to goodness, sure I will soon." 
 
 In fact, wherever Owen went, within the bounds of his native 
 parish, his name, to use a significant phrase of the people, was 
 before him. His arrival at Frank Farrell's was now generally 
 known by all his acquaintances, and the numbers who came to 
 see him were almost beyond belief. During the two or three 
 successive days he went among his old " croniens" / and no 
 sooner was his arrival at any particular house intimated than the 
 neighbours all flocked to him. Scythes were left idle, spades 
 were stuck in the earth, and work neglected for the time being ; 
 all crowded about him with a warm and friendly interest, not 
 proceeding from idle curiosity, but from affection and respect for 
 the man. 
 
 The interview between him and Widow Murray's children 
 was affecting. Owen felt deeply the delicate and touching 
 manner in which they had evinced their gratitude for the 
 services he had rendered them ; and young Murray remem- 
 bered, with a strong gush of feeling, the distresses under which 
 they lay when Owen had assisted them. Their circumstances, 
 owing to the strenuous exertions of the widow's eldest son, soon 
 afterwards improved ; and, in accordance with the sentiments 
 of hearts naturally grateful, they had taken that method of 
 testifying what they felt. Indeed, so well had Owen's unparal- 
 leled affection for his favourite child been known that it was the 
 general opinion about Tubber Derg that her death had broken 
 his heart. 
 
 "Poor Owen! he's dead," they used to say; "the death of 
 his weeny one, while he was away in Dublin, gave him the 
 finishin' blow. It broke his heart." 
 
 Before the week was expired Owen had the satisfaction of 
 depositing the lease of his new farm, held at a moderate rent, 
 in the hands of Frank Farrell, who, tying it up along with his
 
 i So TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 
 
 own, secured it in "the black chest." Nothing remained now 
 but to return home forthwith, and communicate the intelligence 
 to Kathleen. Frank had promised, as soon as the Lacys should 
 vacate the house, to come with a long train of cars and a 
 number of his neighbours, in order to transfer Owen's family 
 and furniture to his new dwelling. Everything, therefore, had 
 been arranged, and Owen had nothing to do but hold himself in 
 readiness for the welcome arrival of Frank and his friends. 
 
 Owen, however, had no sense of enjoyment when not par- 
 ticipated in by his beloved Kathleen. If he felt sorrow, it was 
 less as a personal feeling than as a calamity to her. If he 
 experienced happiness, it was doubly sweet to him as reflected 
 from his Kathleen. All this was mutual between them. Kath- 
 leen loved Owen precisely as he loved Kathleen. Nor let our 
 readers suppose that such characters are not in humble life. It 
 is in humble life, where the springs of feeling are not corrupted 
 by dissimulation and evil knowledge, that the purest and 
 tenderest and strongest virtues are to be found. 
 
 As Owen approached his home he could not avoid contrasting 
 the circumstances of his return now with those under which, 
 almost broken-hearted after his journey to Dublin, he presented 
 himself to his sorrowing and bereaved wife about sixteen years 
 before. He raised his hat, and thanked God for the success 
 which had since that period attended him ; and immediately 
 after his silent thanksgiving entered the house. 
 
 His welcome, our readers may be assured, was tender and 
 affectionate. The whole family gathered about him, and on his 
 informing them that they were once more about to reside on 
 a farm adjoining to their beloved Tubber Derg, Kathleen's 
 countenance brightened, and the tear of delight gushed to her 
 eyes. 
 
 " God be praised, Owen ! " she exclaimed ; " we will have the 
 ould place afore our eyes, an', what is betther, we will be near 
 where. Alley is lyin'. But that's true, Owen," she added, "did 
 you give the light of oui hearts the mother's message ? " 
 
 Owen paused, and his features were slightly overshadowed, 
 but only by the solemnity of the feeling. 
 
 " Kathleen," said he, " I gave her your message ; but, avour- 
 neen, I have sthrange news for you about Alley." 
 
 " What, Owen ? What is it, acuslila ? Tell me quick ! " 
 
 " The blessed child was not neglected ; no, but she was 
 honoured in our absence. A headstone was put over her, an' 
 stands there purtily this minute." 
 
 " Mother of glory, Owen !"
 
 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL. 181 
 
 " It's thruth. Widow Murray an' her son Jimmy put it up, 
 with words upon it that brought the tears to my eyes. Widow 
 Murray is dead, but her childhre's doin' well. May God bless 
 an' prosper them, an' make her happy 1" 
 
 The delighted mother's heart was not proof against the 
 widow's gratitude, expressed, as it had been, in a manner so 
 affecting. She rocked herself to and fro in silence, whilst the 
 tears fell in showers down her cheeks. The grief, however, 
 which this affectionate couple felt for their child was not always 
 such as the reader has perceived it to be. It was rather a 
 revival of emotions that had long slumbered, but never died : 
 and the associations arising from the journey to Tubber Derg 
 had thrown them back, by the force of memory, almost to the 
 period of her death. At times, indeed, their imagination had 
 conjured her up strongly ; but the present was an epoch in the 
 history of their sorrow. 
 
 There is little more to be said. Sorrow was soon succeeded 
 by cheerfulness and the glow of expected pleasure, which is ever 
 the more delightful as the pleasure is pure. In about a week 
 their old neighbours, with their carts and cars, arrived ; and 
 before the day was closed on which Owen removed to his new 
 residence, he found himself once more sitting at his own hearth, 
 among the friends of his youth and the companions of his 
 maturer years. Ere the twelvemonth elapsed he had his house 
 perfectly white, and as nearly resembling that of Tubber Derg 
 in its better days as possible. About two years ago we saw him 
 one evening in the month of June, as he sat on a bench beside 
 his door, singing with a happy heart his favourite song of 
 " Colleen dhas crootha na tno." It was about an hour before 
 sunset. The house stood on a gentle eminence, beneath which 
 a sweep of green meadow stretched away to the skirts of Tubber 
 Derg. Around him was a country naturally fertile, and, in spite 
 of the national depression, still beautiful to contemplate. Kath- 
 leen and two servant-maids were milking, and the whole family 
 were assembled about the door. 
 
 " Well, childhre," said the father, " didn't 1 tell yees, the 
 bitther mornin' we left Tubber Derg, not to cry or be dis- 
 heartenedthat 'there was a good God above, who might do 
 somethin' for us yet?* I never did give up my trust in him, 
 an' I never will. You see, afther all our little throubles, he has 
 wanst more brought us together, an' made us happy. Praise 
 an' glory to his name ! " 
 
 I looked at him as he spoke. He had raised his eyes to 
 heaven, and a gleam of elevated devotion, perhaps worthy of
 
 1 82 TUBBER DERG; OR, THE RED WELL 
 
 being called sublime, irradiated his features. The sun, too, in 
 setting, fell upon his broad temples and iron-grey locks with a 
 light solemn and religious. The effect to me, who knew his 
 noble character, and all that he had suffered, was as if the eye 
 of God then rested upon the decline of a virtuous man's life 
 with approbation ; as if he had lifted up the glory of his 
 countenance upon him. Would that many of his thoughtless 
 countrymen had been present ! They might have blushed for 
 their crimes, and been content to sit and learn wisdom at the 
 feet of Owen M'Carthy.
 
 WILDGOOSE LODGE. 
 
 I HAD read the anonymous summons, but, from its general 
 import, I believed it to be one of those special meetings 
 convened for some purpose affecting the usual objects and 
 proceedings of the body ; at least, the terms in which it was 
 conveyed to me had nothing extraordinary or mysterious in 
 them beyond the simple fact that it was not to be a general but 
 a select meeting. This mark of confidence flattered me, and I 
 determined to attend punctually. I was, it is true, desired to 
 keep the circumstance entirely to myself; but there was nothing 
 startling in this, for I had often received summonses of a similar 
 nature. I therefore resolved to attend, according to the letter of 
 my instructions, " on the next night, at the solemn hour of mid- 
 night, to deliberate and act upon such matters as should then and 
 there be submitted to my consideration." The morning after I 
 received this message 1 arose and resumed my usual occupa- 
 tions ; but, from whatever cause it may have proceeded, I felt a 
 sense of approaching evil hang heavily upon me : the beats of 
 my pulse were languid, and an undefinable feeling of anxiety 
 pervaded my whole spirit ; even my face was pale, and my eye 
 so heavy that my father and brothers concluded me to be ill 
 an opinion which I thought at the time to be correct, for I felt 
 exactly that kind of depression which precedes a severe fever. 
 I could not understand what I experienced, nor can I yet, 
 except by supposing that there is in human nature some 
 mysterious faculty by which, in coming calamities, the dread of 
 some fearful evil is anticipated, and that it is possible to catch a 
 dark presentiment of the sensations which they subsequently 
 produce. For my part, I can neither analyse nor define it ; but 
 on that day I knew it by painful experience, and so have a 
 thousand others in similar circumstances. 
 
 It was about the middle of winter. The day was gloomy and 
 tempestuous almost beyond any other I remember. Dark clouds 
 rolled over the hills about me, and a close, sleet-like rain fell in 
 slanting drifts that chased each other rapidly towards the earth
 
 184 WILDGOOSE LODGE. 
 
 on the course of the blast. The outlying cattle sought the 
 closest and calmest corners of the fields for shelter ; the trees 
 and young groves were tossed about, for the wind was so 
 unusually high that it swept in hollow gusts through them with 
 that hoarse murmur which deepens so powerfully on the mind 
 the sense of dreariness and desolation. 
 
 As the shades of night fell, the storm, if possible, increased. 
 The moon was half gone, and only a few stars were visible by 
 glimpses, as a rush of wind left a temporary opening in the sky. 
 I had determined, if the storm should not abate, to incur any 
 penalty rather than attend the meeting ; but the appointed 
 hour was distant, and I resolved to be decided by the future 
 state of the night 
 
 Ten o'clock came, but still there was no change ; eleven 
 passed, and on opening the door to observe if there were any 
 likelihood of its clearing up, a blast of wind, mingled with rain, 
 nearly blew me off my feet. At length it was approaching to 
 the hour of midnight ; and on examining a third time, I found 
 it had calmed a little, and no longer rained. 
 
 I instantly got my oak stick, muffled myself in my greatcoat, 
 strapped my hat about my ears, and, as the place of meeting 
 was only a quarter of a mile distant, I presently set out. 
 
 The appearance of the heavens was lowering and angry, 
 particularly in that point where the light of the moon fell against 
 the clouds, from a seeming chasm in them, through which 
 alone she was visible. The edges of this chasm were faintly 
 bronzed, but the dense body of the masses that hung piled on 
 each side of her was black and impenetrable to sight. In no 
 other point of the heavens was there any part of the sky visible ; 
 a deep veil of clouds overhung the horizon, yet was the light 
 sufficient to give occasional glimpses of the rapid shifting 
 which took place in this dark canopy, and of the tempestuous 
 agitation with which the midnight storm swept to and fro 
 beneath it. 
 
 At length I arrived at a long slated house, situated in a 
 solitary part of the neighbourhood ; a little below it ran a 
 small stream, which was now swollen above its banks, and 
 rushing with mimic roar over the flat meadows beside it. The 
 appearance of the bare slated building in such a night was 
 particularly sombre, and to those, like me, who knew the 
 purpose to which it was usually devoted, it was, or ought to 
 have been, peculiarly so. There it stood, silent and gloomy, 
 without any appearance of human life or enjoyment about or 
 within it. As I approached, the moon once more had broken
 
 WILDGOOSE LODGE. 185 
 
 out of the clouds, and shone dimly upon the wet, glittering 
 slates and windows with a deathlike lustre, that gradually faded 
 away as I left the point of observation and entered the folding- 
 door. It was the parish chapel. 
 
 The scene which presented itself here was in keeping not 
 only with the external appearance of the house, but with the 
 darkness, the storm, and the hour, which was now a little after 
 midnight. About eighty persons were sitting in dead silence 
 upon the circular steps of the altar. They did not seem to 
 move ; and as I entered and advanced the echo of my footsteps 
 rang through the building with a lonely distinctness which 
 added to the solemnity and mystery of the circumstances about 
 me. The windows were secured with shutters on the inside, 
 and on the altar a candle was lighted, which burned dimly amid 
 the surrounding darkness, and lengthened the shadow of the 
 altar itself, and those of six or seven persons who stood on its 
 upper steps, until they mingled in the obscurity which shrouded 
 the lower end of the chapel. The faces of the men who sat 
 on the altar steps were not distinctly visible, yet their prominent 
 and more characteristic features were in sufficient relief, and I 
 observed that some of the most malignant and reckless spirits 
 in the parish were assembled. In the eyes of those who stood 
 at the altar, and whom I knew to be invested with authority 
 over the others, I could perceive gleams of some latent and 
 ferocious purpose, kindled, as I soon observed, into a fiercer 
 expression of vengeance by the additional excitement of ardent 
 spirits, with which they had stimulated themselves to a point of 
 determination that mocked at the apprehension of all future 
 responsibility, either in this world or the next. 
 
 The welcome which I received on joining them was far 
 different from the boisterous good-humour that used to mark 
 our greetings on other occasions : just a nod of the head from 
 this or that person, on the part of those -who sat, with a ghud 
 dhemur tha thu ? 1 in a suppressed voice, even below a common 
 whisper ; but from the standing group, who were evidently the 
 projectors of the enterprise, I received a convulsive grasp of the 
 hand, accompanied by a fierce and desperate look that seemed 
 to search my eye and countenance, to try if I were a person 
 not likely to shrink from whatever they had resolved to execute. 
 It is surprising to think of the powerful expression which a 
 moment of intense interest or great danger is capable of giving 
 to the eye, the features, and the slightest actions, especially in 
 
 1 How are you ^
 
 i86 W1LDGOOSE LODGE. 
 
 those whose station in society does not require them to con- 
 strain nature, by the force of social courtesies, into habits that 
 conceal their natural emotions. None of the standing group 
 spoke ; but as each of them wrung my hand in silence his eye 
 was fixed on mine with an expression of drunken confidence 
 and secrecy, and an insolent determination not to be gainsayed 
 without peril. If looks could be translated with certainty, they 
 seemed to say, " We are bound upon a project of vengeance, 
 and if you do not join us, remember that we can revenge." 
 Along with this grasp they did not forget to remind me of the 
 common bond by which we were united, for each man gave me 
 the secret grip of Ribbonism in a manner that made the joints 
 of my fingers ache for some minutes afterwards. 
 
 There was one present, however the highest in authority 
 whose actions and demeanour were calm and unexcited. He 
 seemed to labour under no unusual influence whatever, but 
 evinced a serenity so placid and philosophical that I attributed 
 the silence of the sitting group, and the restraint which curbed 
 in the out-breaking passions of those who stood, entirely to his 
 presence. He was a schoolmaster, who taught his daily school 
 in that chapel, and acted also on Sunday in the capacity of 
 clerk to the priest an excellent and amiable old man, who 
 knew little of his illegal connections and atrocious conduct. 
 
 When the ceremonies of brotherly recognition and friendship 
 were past, the captain (by which title I shall designate the last- 
 mentioned person) stooped, and raising a jar of whisky on the 
 corner of the altar, held a wine-glass to its neck, which he filled, 
 and, with a calm nod, handed it to me to drink. I shrunk back, 
 with an instinctive horror at the profaneness of such an act, in 
 the house, and on the altar, of God, and peremptorily refused to 
 taste the proffered draught. He smiled mildly a" what he con- 
 sidered my superstition, and added quietly, and in a low voice, 
 " You'll be wantin' it, I'm thinkin', afther the wettin' you got." 
 
 "Wet or dry," said I - 
 
 " Stop, man ! " he replied, in the same tone ; " spake low. 
 But why wouldn't you take the whisky? Sure there's as holy 
 people to the fore as you ; didn't they all take it ? An' I wish 
 we may never do worse nor dhi ink a harmless glass o' whisky 
 to keep the cowld out, anyway." 
 
 "Well," said I, "I'll jist trust to God and the consequences 
 for the cowld, Paddy, ma bouchal ; but a blessed dhrop of it 
 won't be crossin' my lips, avick ; so no more ghosther about it 
 dhrink it yourself, if you like. Maybe you want it as much as I 
 do ; wherein I've the patthern of a good big coat upon me, so
 
 W2LDGOOSE LODGE, 187 
 
 thick, your sowl, that if it was rainin' bullocks a dhrop wouldn't 
 get under the nap of it" 
 
 He gave me a calm but keen glance as I spoke. 
 
 " Well, Jim," said he, " it's a good comrade you've got for the 
 weather that's in it ; but, in the manetime, to set you a dacent 
 patthern, I'll just take this myself" saying which, with the jar 
 still upon its side, and the forefinger of his left hand in its neck, 
 he swallowed the spirits. " It's the first I dhrank to-night," he 
 added, " nor would I dhrink it now, only to show you that I've 
 heart an' spirit to do the thing that we're all bound an' sworn 
 to, when the proper time comes ;" after which he laid down the 
 glass, and turned up the jar, with much coolness, upon the altar. 
 
 During our conversation those who had been summoned to 
 this mysterious meeting were pouring in fast ; and as each 
 person approached the altar he received from one to two or 
 three glasses of whisky, according as he chose to limit him- 
 self; but, to do them justice, there were not a few of those 
 present who, in spite of their own desire and the captain's 
 express invitation, refused to taste it in the house of God's 
 worship. Such, however, as were scrupulous he afterwards 
 recommended to take it on the outside of the chapel door, 
 which they did, as, by that means, the sacrilege of the act was 
 supposed to be evaded. 
 
 About one o'clock they were all assembled except six ; at 
 least so the captain asserted on looking at a written paper. 
 
 " Now, boys," said he, in the same low voice, " we are all 
 present except the thraitors whose names I am goin' to read to 
 you ; not that we are to count thim thraitors, till we know 
 whether or not it was in their power to come. Anyhow, the 
 night's terrible but, boys, you're to know that neither fire nor 
 wather is to prevint yees, when duly summoned to attind a 
 meeting particularly whin the summons is widout a name, as 
 you have been told that there is always something of conse- 
 quence to be done thin" 
 
 He then read out the names of those who were absent, in 
 order that the real cause of their absence might be ascertained, 
 declaring that they would be dealt with accordingly. After 
 this, with his usual caution, he shut and bolted the door, and 
 having put the key in his pocket, ascended the steps of the 
 altar, and for some time traversed the little platform from which 
 the priest usually addresses the congregation. 
 
 Until this night I had never contemplated the man's counten- 
 ance with any particular interest ; but as he walked the platform 
 I had an opportunity of observing him more closely. He was
 
 1 88 WILDGOOSE LODGE. 
 
 slight in person, apparently not thirty ; and, on a first view, 
 appeared to have nothing remarkable in his dress or features. 
 I, however, was not the only person whose eyes were fixed upon 
 him at that moment ; in fact, every one present observed him 
 with equal interest, for hitherto he had kept the object of the 
 meeting perfectly secret, and of course we all felt anxious to 
 know it. It was while he traversed the platform that I 
 scrutinised his features with a hope, if possible, to glean from 
 them some evidence of what was passing within him. I could, 
 however, mark but little, and that little was at first rather from 
 the intelligence which seemed to subsist between him and those 
 whom I have already mentioned as standing against the altar 
 than from any indication of his own. Their gleaming eyes 
 were fixed upon him with an intensity of savage and demon-like 
 hope which blazed out in flashes of malignant triumph, as, upon 
 turning, he threw a cool but rapid glance at them, to intimate 
 the progress he was making in the subject to which he devoted 
 the undivided energies of his mind. But in the course of his 
 meditation I could observe, on one or two occasions, a dark 
 shade come over his countenance, that contracted his brow into 
 a deep furrow, and it was then, for the first time, that I saw the 
 Satanic expression of which his face, by a very slight motion 
 of its muscles, was capable. His hands, during this silence, 
 closed and opened convulsively; his eyes shot out two or three 
 baleful glances, first to his confederates, and afterwards vacantly 
 into the deep gloom of the lower pnrt of the chapel ; his teeth 
 ground against each other like those of a man whose revenge 
 burns to reach a distant enemy; and finally, after having wound 
 himself up to a certain determination, his features relapsed into 
 their original calm and undisturbed expression. 
 
 At this moment a loud laugh, having something supernatural 
 in it, rang out wildly from the darkness of the chapel ; he 
 stopped, and putting his open hand over his brows, peered 
 down into the gloom, and said calmy, in Irish, "Bee dhu husth; 
 ha nihi anam ink hold your tongue; it is not yet the time." 
 
 Every eye was now directed to the same spot, but, in conse- 
 quence of its distance from the dim light on the altar, none 
 could perceive the person from whom the laugh proceeded. It 
 was by this time near two o'clock in the morning. 
 
 He now stood for a few moments on the platform, and his 
 chest heaved with a depth of anxiety equal to the difficulty of 
 the design he wished to accomplish. 
 
 " Brothers," said he " for we are all brothers sworn upon 
 all that's blessed an' holy to obay whatever them that's over us,
 
 WILDGOOSE LODGE. 189 
 
 manirf among ourselves? wishes us to do are you now ready, in 
 the name of God, upon whose althar I stand, to fulfil yer oaths?" 
 
 The words were scarcely uttered when those who had stood 
 beside the altar during the night sprang from their places, and 
 descending its steps rapidly, turned round, and raising their 
 arms, exclaimed, " By all that's sacred an' holy, we're willin'." 
 
 In the meantime those who sat upon the steps of the altar 
 instantly rose, and, following the example of those who had just 
 spoken, exclaimed after them, " To be sure by all that's sacred 
 an' holy, we're willin'." 
 
 "Now, boys," said the captain, "aren't yees big fools for your 
 pains ? an' one of yees doesn't know what I mane." 
 
 "You're our captain," said one of those who had stood at the 
 altar, "an* has yer ordhers from higher quarthers ; of coorse, 
 whatever ye command upon us we're bound to obey you in." 
 
 " Well," said he, smiling, " I only wanted to thry yees ; an' by 
 the oath yees tuck, there's not a captain in the county has as 
 good a right to be proud of his min as I have. Well, yees won't 
 rue it, maybe, when the right time comes ; and for that same 
 rason every one of yees must have a glass from the jar ; thim 
 that won't dhrink it in the chapel can dhrink it ividout; an' here 
 goes to open the door for them." 
 
 He then distributed another glass to every man who would 
 accept it, and brought the jar afterwards to the chapel door, to 
 satisfy the scruples of those who would not drink within. When 
 this was performed, and all duly excited, he proceeded 
 
 " Now, brothers, you are solemnly sworn to obay me, and I'm 
 sure there's no thraithur here that ud parjure himself for a 
 thrifle ; but Pm sworn to obay them that's above me, manin' 
 still among ourselves ; an' to show you that I don't scruple to 
 do it, here goes ! " 
 
 He then turned round, and taking the Missal between his 
 hands, placed it upon the altar. Hitherto every word was uttered 
 in a low, precautionary tone ; but on grasping the book he again 
 turned round, and looking upon his confederates with the same 
 Satanic expression which marked his countenance before, 
 exclaimed, in a voice of deep determination 
 
 " By this sacred an' holy book of God, I will perform the action 
 which we have met this night to accomplish, be that what it 
 may ; an' this I swear upon God's book an' God's althar !" 
 
 On concluding he struck the book violently with his open hand. 
 
 At this moment the candle which burned before him went 
 
 1 In opposition to the constituted authorities. 
 
 14
 
 190 WILDGOOSE LODGE. 
 
 suddenly out, and the chapel was wrapped in pitchy darkness ; 
 the sound as if of rushing wings fell upon our ears, and fifty 
 voices dwelt upon the last words of his oath with wild and super- 
 natural ^ones, that seemed to echo and to mock what he had 
 sworn. There was a pause, and an exclamation of horror from 
 all present. But the captain was too cool and steady to be 
 disconcerted. He immediately groped about until he got the 
 candle, and proceeding calmly to a remote corner of the chapel, 
 took up a half-burned turf which lay there, and, after some 
 trouble, succeeded in lighting it again. He then explained what 
 had taken place ; which indeed was easily done, as the candle 
 happened to be extinguished by a pigeon which sat directly 
 above it. The chapel, I should have observed, was at this time, 
 like many country chapels, unfinished inside, and the pigeons of 
 a neighbouring dove-cote had built nests among the rafters of 
 theunceiled roof; which circumstance also explained the rushing 
 of the wings, for the birds had been affrighted by the sudden 
 loudness of the noise. The mocking voices were nothing but 
 the echoes, rendered naturally more awful by the scene, the 
 mysterious object of the meeting, and the solemn hour of the 
 night. 
 
 When the candle was again lighted, and these startling circum- 
 stances accounted for, the persons whose vengeance had been 
 deepening more and more during the night rushed to the altar 
 in a body, where each, in a voice trembling with passionate 
 eagerness, repeated the oath ; and as every word was pronounced 
 the same echoes heightened the wildness of the horrible cere- 
 mony by their long and unearthly tones. The countenances of 
 these human tigers were livid with suppressed rage ; their knit 
 brows, compressed lips, and kindled eyes fell under the dim 
 light of the taper with an expression calculated to sicken any 
 heart not absolutely diabolical. 
 
 As soon as this dreadful rite was completed we were again 
 Startled by several loud bursts of laughter, which proceeded 
 from the lower darkness of the chapel, and the captain, on 
 hearing them, turned to the place, and, reflecting for a moment, 
 said in Irish, " Gutsho nish, avohelhee come hither now, boys." 
 
 A rush immediately took place from the corner in which they 
 had secreted themselves all the night ; and seven men appeared, 
 whom we instantly recognised as brothers and cousins of certain 
 persons who had been convicted some time before for breaking 
 into the house of an honest poor man in the neighbourhood, 
 from whom, after having treated him with barbarous violence, 
 they took away such fire-arms as he kept for his own protection.
 
 WILDGOOSE LODGE. 191 
 
 It was evidently not the captain's intention to have produced 
 these persons until the oath should have been generally taken, 
 but the exulting mirth with which they enjoyed the success of 
 his scheme betrayed them, and put him to the necessity of 
 bringing them forward somewhat before the concerted moment. 
 
 The scene which now took place was beyond all power of 
 description : peals of wild, fiend-like yells rang through the 
 chapel, as the party which stood on the altar and that which 
 had crouched in the darkness met ; wringing of hands, leaping 
 in triumph, striking of sticks and fire-arms against the ground 
 and the altar itself, dancing and cracking of fingers, marked 
 the triumph of some hellish determination. Even the captain 
 for a time was unable to restrain their fury ; but at length he 
 mounted the platform before the altar once more, and, with a 
 stamp of his foot, recalled their attention to himself and the 
 matter in hand. 
 
 " Boys," said he, " enough of this, and too much ; an' well 
 for us it is that the chapel is in a lonely place, or our foolish 
 noise might do us no good. Let thim that swore so manfully 
 jist now stand a one side, till the rest kiss the book, one by one." 
 
 The proceedings, however, had by this time taken too (earful 
 a shape for even the captain to compel them to a blindfold 
 oath. The first man he called flatly refused to answer until he 
 should hear the nature of the service that was required. This 
 was echoed by the remainder, who, taking courage from the 
 firmness of this person, declared generally that until they first 
 knew the business they were to execute none of them would 
 take the oath. The captain's lip quivered slightly, and his 
 brow again became knit with the same hellish expression, 
 which I have remarked gave him so much the appearance of 
 an embodied fiend ; but this speedily passed away, and was 
 succeeded by a malignant sneer, in which lurked, if there ever 
 did in a sneer, " a laughing devil," calmly, determinedly 
 atrocious. 
 
 " It wasn't worth yer whiles to refuse the oath," said he 
 mildly, " for the truth is, I had next to nothing for yees to do. 
 Not a hand, maybe, would have to rise, only jist to look on, an' 
 if any resistance would be made, to show yourselves ; yer 
 numbers would soon make them see that resistance would be 
 no use whatever in the piesent case. At all evints, the oath of 
 secrecy must be taken, or woe be to him that will refuse that; he 
 won't know the day, nor the hour, nor the minute, when he'll be 
 made a spatchcock ov." 
 
 He then turned round, and, placing his right hand on the
 
 192 WILDGOOSE LODGE. 
 
 Missal, swore, " In the presence of God, and before his holy 
 altar, that whatever might take place that night he would keep 
 secret from man or mortal, except the priest, and that neither 
 bribery, nor imprisonment, nor death would wring it from his 
 heart." 
 
 Having done this, he again struck the book violently, as if 
 to confirm the energy with which he swore, and then calmly 
 descending the steps, stood with a serene countenance, like a 
 man conscious of having performed a good action. As this 
 oath did not pledge those who refused to take the other to the 
 perpetration of any specific crime, it was readily taken by all 
 present. Preparations were then made to execute what was 
 intended ; the half-burned turf was placed in a little pot ; 
 another glass of whisky was distributed ; and the door being 
 locked by the captain, who kept the key as parish clerk and 
 master, the crowd departed silently from the chapel. 
 
 The moment those who lay in the darkness during the night 
 made their appearance at the altar, we knew at once the persons 
 we were to visit ; for, as I said before, they were related to the 
 miscreants whom one of thore persons had convicted, in con- 
 sequence of their midnight attack upon himself and his family. 
 The captain's object in keeping them unseen was that those 
 present, not being aware of the duty about to be imposed on 
 them, might have less hesitation about s.vearing to its fulfilment. 
 Our conjectures were correct, for on leaving the chapel we 
 directed our steps to the house in which this devoted man 
 resided. 
 
 The night was still storm), but without rain ; it was rather 
 dark too, though not so as to prevent us from seeing the clouds 
 careering swiftly through the air. The dense curtain which had 
 overhung and obscured the horizon was now broken, and large 
 sections of the sky were clear, and thinly studded with stars that 
 looked dim and watery, as did indeed the whole firmament ; for 
 in some places black clouds were still visible, threatening 
 a continuance of tempestuous weather. The road appeared 
 washed and gravelly; every dike was full of yellow water; and 
 every little rivulet and larger stream dashed its hoarse music in 
 our ears ; every blast, too, was cold, fierce, and wintry, some- 
 times driving us back to a standstill, and again, when a turn in 
 the road would bring it in our backs, whirling us along for a few 
 steps with involuntary rapidity. At length the fated dwelling 
 became visible, and a short consultation was held in a sheltered 
 place between the captain and the two parties who seemed so 
 eager for its destruction. The fire-arms were now loaded, and
 
 W1LDGOOSE LODGE. 193 
 
 their bayonets and short pikes, the latter shod and pointed with 
 iron, were also got ready. The live coal which was brought in 
 the small pot had become extinguished; but to remedy this two 
 or three persons from a remote part of the county entered a 
 cabin on the wayside, and under pretence of lighting their own 
 and their comrades' pipes, procured a coal of fire, for so they 
 called a lighted turf. From the time we left the chapel until 
 this moment a profound silence had been maintained a cir- 
 cumstance which, when I considered the number of persons 
 present, and the mysterious and dreaded object of their journey, 
 had a most appalling effect upon my spirits. 
 
 At length we arrived within fifty perches of the house, walk- 
 ing in a compact body, and with as little noise as possible ; but 
 it seemed as if the very elements had conspired to frustrate our 
 design, for on advancing within the shade of the farm-hedge, 
 two or three persons found themselves up to the middle in 
 water, and on stooping to ascertain more accurately the state 
 of the place, we could see nothing but one immense sheet of it 
 spread like a lake over the meadows which surrounded the 
 spot we wished to reach. 
 
 Fatal night ! The very recollection of it, when associated 
 with the fearful tempests of the elements, grows, if that were 
 possible, yet more wild and revolting. Had we been engaged 
 in any innocent or benevolent enterprise, there was something 
 in our situation just then that had a touch of interest in it to a 
 mind imbued with a relish for the savage beauties of nature. 
 There we stood, about a hundred and thirty in number, our 
 dark forms bent forward, peering into the dusky expanse of 
 water, with its dim gleams of reflected light, broken by the 
 weltering of the mimic waves into ten thousand fragments, 
 whilst the few stars that overhung it in the firmament appeared 
 to shoot through it in broken lines, and to be multiplied fifty- 
 fold in the gloomy mirror on which we gazed. 
 
 Over us was a stormy sky, and around us a darkness through 
 which we could only distinguish, in outline, the nearest objects, 
 whilst the wind swept strongly and dismally upon us. When it 
 was discovered that the common pathway to the house was 
 inundated, we were about to abandon our object and return 
 home. The captain, however, stooped down low for a moment, 
 and, almost closing his eyes, loojced along the surface of the 
 waters, and then, raising himself Very calmly, said, in his usual 
 quiet tone, "Yees needn't go back, boys I've found a way; jist 
 follow me." 
 
 He immediately took a more circuitous direction, by which we
 
 194 WILDGOOSE LODGE. 
 
 reached a causeway that had been raised for the purpose of 
 giving a free passage to and from the house during such 
 inundations as the present. Along this we had advanced more 
 than half way when we discovered a breach in it, which, as 
 afterwards appeared, had that night been made by the strength 
 of the flood. This, by means of our sticks and pikes, we found 
 to be about three feet deep and eight yards broad. Again we 
 were at a loss how to proceed, when the fertile brain of the 
 captain devised a method of crossing it. 
 
 " Boys," said he, " of coorse you've all played at leap-frog ; 
 very well, strip and go in, a dozen of you, lean one upon the 
 back of another from this to the opposite bank, where one must 
 stand facing the outside man, both their shoulders agin one 
 another, that the outside man may be supported. Then we can 
 creep over you; an' a dacent bridge you'll be, anyway." 
 
 This was the work of only a few minutes, and in less than ten 
 we were all safely over. 
 
 Merciful heaven ! how I sicken at the recollection of what is 
 to follow ! On reaching the dry bank, we proceeded instantly, 
 and in profound silence, to the house ; the captain divided us 
 into companies, and then assigned to each division its proper 
 station. The two parties who had been so vindictive all the 
 night he kept about himself; for of those who were present 
 they only were in his confidence, and knew his nefarious 
 purpose ; their number was about fifteen. Having made these 
 dispositions, he, at the head of about five of them, approached 
 the house on the windy side, for the fiend possessed a coolness 
 which enabled him to seize upon every possible advantage. 
 That he had combustibles about him was evident, for in less 
 than fifteen minutes nearly one-half of the house was enveloped 
 in flames. On seeing this the others rushed over to the spot 
 where he and his gang were standing, and remonstrated 
 earnestly, but in vain ; the flames now burst forth with renewed 
 violence, and as they flung their strong light upon the faces of 
 the foremost group, I think hell itself could hardly present 
 anything more Satanic than their countenances, now worked 
 up into a paroxysm of infernal triumph at their own revenge. 
 The captain's look had lost all its calmness, every feature 
 started out into distinct malignity, the curve in his brow was 
 deep, and ran up to the root of the hair, dividing his face into 
 two segments, that did not seem to have been designed for 
 each other. His lips were half open, and the corners of his 
 mouth a little brought back on each side, like those of a man 
 expressing intense hatred and triumph over an enemy who is in
 
 WILDGOOSE LODGE. 195 
 
 the death struggle under his grasp. His eyes blazed from 
 beneath his knit eyebrows with a fire that seemed to be lighted 
 up in the infernal pit itself. It is unnecessary and only pain.ul 
 to describe the rest of his gang ; demons might have been 
 proud of such horrible visages as they exhibited for they 
 worked under all the power of hatred, revenge, and joy ; and 
 these passions blended into one terrible scowl, enough almost 
 to blast any human eye that would venture to look upon it 
 
 When the others attempted to intercede for the lives of the 
 inmates, there were at least fifteen guns and pistols levelled at 
 them. 
 
 " Another word," said the captain, " an' you're a corpse where 
 you stand, or the first man who will dare to spake for them ; 
 no, no, it wasn't to spare them we came here. ' No mercy ' is 
 the password for the night, an' by the sacred oath I swore 
 beyant in the chapel, any one among yees that will attempt to 
 show it will find none at my hand. Surround the house, boys, 
 I tell ye ; I hear them stirring. ' No quarther no mercy,' is the 
 ordher of the night." 
 
 Such was his command over these misguided creatures that 
 in an instant there was a ring round the house to prevent the 
 escape of the unhappy inmates, should the raging element give 
 them time to attempt it ; for none present durst withdraw them- 
 selves from the scene, not only from an apprehension of the 
 captain's present vengeance, or that of his gang, but because 
 they knew thaf, even had they then escaped, an early and 
 certain death awaited them from a quarter against which they 
 had no means of defence. The hour now was about half-past 
 two o'clock. Scarcely had the last words escaped from the 
 captain's lips, when one of the windows of the house was 
 broken, and a human head, having the hair in a blaze, was 
 descried, apparently a woman's, if one might judge by the 
 profusion of burning tresses, and the softness of the tones, 
 notwithstanding that it called, or rather shrieked aloud, for 
 help and mercy. The only reply to this was the whoop from 
 the captain and his gang of "No mercy no mercy !" and that 
 instant the former and one of the latter rushed to the spot, and 
 ere the action could be perceived the head was transfixed with 
 a bayonet and a pike, both having entered it together. The 
 word mercy was divided in her mouth ; a short silence ensued ; 
 the head hung down on the window, but was instantly tossed 
 back into the flames ! 
 
 This action occasioned a cry of horror from all present, 
 except the gang and their leader, which startled and enraged
 
 196 WILDGOOSE LODGE, 
 
 the latter so much that he ran towards one of them, and had 
 his bayonet, now reeking with the blood of its innocent victim, 
 raised to plunge it in his body, when, dropping the point, he 
 said in a piercing whisper, that hissed in the ears of all, " It's 
 no use now, you know ; if one's to hang, all will hang ; so our 
 safest way, you persave, is to lave none of them to tell the story. 
 Ye may go now, if you wish ; but it won't save a hair of your 
 heads. You cowardly set ! I knew if I had tould yees the 
 sport that none of yecs, except my own boys, would come, so I 
 jist played a thrick upon you ; but remimber what you are 
 sworn to, and stand to the oath ye tuck." 
 
 Unhappily, notwithstanding the wetness of the preceding 
 weather, the materials of the house were extremely combust- 
 ible; the whole dwelling was now one body of glowing flame, 
 yet the shouts and shrieks within rose awfully above its 
 crackling and the voice of the storm, for the wind once more 
 blew in gusts and with great violence. The doors and windows 
 were all torn open, and such of those within as had escaped 
 the flames rushed towards them, for the purpose of further 
 escape, and of claiming mercy at the hands of their destroyers ; 
 but whenever they appeared the unearthly cry of " NO MERCY " 
 rung upon their ears for a moment, and for a moment only, for 
 they were flung back at the points of the weapons which the 
 demons had brought with them to make the work of vengeance 
 more certain. 
 
 As yet there were many persons in the house whose cry for 
 life was strong as despair, and who clung to it with all the 
 awakened powers of reason and instinct. The ear of man 
 could hear nothing so strongly calculated to stifle the demon of 
 cruelty and revenge within him as the long and wailing shrieks 
 which rose beyond the elements in tones that were carried off 
 rapidly upon the blast, until they died away in the darkness 
 that lay behind the surrounding hills. Had not the house been 
 in a solitary situation, and the hour the dead of night, any per- 
 son sleeping within a moderate distance must have heard them, 
 for such a cry of sorrow rising into a yell of despair was almost 
 sufficient to have awakened the dead. It was lost, however, 
 upon the hearts and ears that heard it : to them, though in 
 justice be it said, to only comparatively a few of them, it was as 
 delightful as the tones of soft and entrancing music. 
 
 The claims of the surviving sufferers were now modified : 
 they supplicated merely to suffer death by the weapons of theit 
 enemies; they were willing to bear that, provided they should 
 be allowed to escape from the flames ; but no the horrors of
 
 WILDGOOSE LODGE. 197 
 
 the conflagration were calmly and malignantly gloried in by 
 their merciless assassins, who deliberately flung them back into 
 all their tortures. In the course of a few minutes a man 
 appeared upon the side-wall of the house, nearly naked ; his 
 figure, as he stood against the sky in horrible relief, was so 
 finished a picture of woe-begone agony and supplication that it 
 is yet as distinct in my memory as if I were again present at 
 the scene. Every muscle, now in motion by the powerful 
 agitation of his sufferings, stood out upon his limbs and neck, 
 giving him an appearance of desperate strength, to which by 
 this time he must have been wrought up ; the perspiration 
 poured from his frame, and the veins and arteries of his neck 
 were inflated to a surprising thickness. Every moment he 
 looked down into the flames which were rising to where he 
 stood ; and as he looked the indescribable horror which flitted 
 over his features might have worked upon the devil himself to 
 relent. His words were few. 
 
 "My child," said he, "is still safe ; she is an infant, a young 
 crathur that never harmed you nor any one she is still safe. 
 Your mothers, your wives, have young, innocent childhre like it. 
 Oh, spare her ! think for a moment that it's one of your own. 
 Spare it, as you hope to meet a just God; or if you don't, in 
 mercy shoot me first put an end to me before I see her 
 burned ! " 
 
 The captain approached him coolly and deliberately. "You'll 
 prosecute no one now, you bloody informer," said he ; " you'll 
 convict no more boys for takin' an ould gun an' pistol from you, 
 or for givin' you a neighbourly knock or two into the bargain." 
 
 Just then, from a window opposite him, proceeded the shrieks 
 of a woman, who appeared at it with the infant in her arms. 
 She herself was almost scorched to death ; but, with the pres- 
 ence of mind and humanity of her sex, she was about to put 
 the little babe out of the window. The captain noticed this, 
 and, with characteristic atrocity, thrust, with a sharp bayonet, 
 the little innocent, along with the person who endeavoured to 
 rescue it, into the red flames, where they both perished. This 
 was the work of an instant. Again he approached the man. 
 " Your child is a coal now," said he, with deliberate mockery ; 
 " I pitched it in myself, on the point of this " showing the 
 weapon "an" now is your turn" saying which he clambered 
 up, by the assistance of his gang, who stood with a front of 
 pikes and bayonets bristling to receive the wretched man, 
 should he attempt, in his despair, to throw himself from the 
 wall. The captain got up, and placing the point of his bayonet
 
 198 WILD GOOSE LODGE. 
 
 against his shoulder, flung him into the fiery element that raged 
 behind him. He uttered one wild and terrific cry as he ftll 
 back, and no more. After this nothing was heard but the 
 crackling of the fire and the rushing of the blast : all that 
 had possessed life within were consumed, amounting either 
 to eleven or fifteen persons. 
 
 When this was accomplished, those who took an active part 
 in the murder stood for some time about the conflagration ; and 
 as it threw its red light upon their fierce faces and rough 
 persons, soiled as they now were with smoke and black streaks 
 of ashes, the scene seemed to be changed to hell, the murderers 
 to spirits of the damned, rejoicing over the arrival and the 
 torture of some guilty soul. The faces of those who kept 
 aloof from the slaughter were blanched to the whiteness of 
 death ; some of them fainted, and others were in such agitation 
 that they were compelled to lean on their comrades. They 
 became actually powerless with horror ; yet to such a scene 
 were they brought by the pernicious influence of Ribbonism. 
 
 It was only when the last victim went down that the confla- 
 gration shot up into the air with most unbounded fury. The 
 house was large, deeply thatched, and well furnished; and the 
 broad red pyramid rose up with fearful magnificence towards 
 the sky. Abstractedly it had sublimity, but now it was 
 associated with nothing in my mind but blood and terror. It 
 was not, however, without a purpose that the captain and his 
 gang stood to contemplate its effect. " Boys," said he, " we 
 had betther be sartin that a'l's safe ; who knows but there 
 might be some of the sarpents crouchin' under a hape o' 
 rubbish, to come out an' gibbet us to-morrow or next day. We 
 had betther wait awhile, anyhow, if it was only to see the 
 blaze." 
 
 Just then the flames rose majestically to a surprising height. 
 Our eyes followed their direction ; and we perceived, for the 
 first time, that the dark clouds above, together with the inter- 
 mediate air, appeared to reflect back, or rather to have caught, 
 the red hue of the fire. The hills and country about us 
 appeared with an alarming distinctness ; but the most pictur- 
 esque part of it was the effect or reflection of the blaze on the 
 floods that spread over the surrounding plains. These, in fact, 
 appeared to be one broad mass of liquid copper, for the motion 
 of the breaking waters caught from the blaze of the high waving 
 column, as reflected in them, a glaring light, which eddied, and 
 rose, and fluctuated as if the flood itself had been a lake of 
 molten fire.
 
 WILD GOOSE LODGE. 199 
 
 Fire, however, destroys rapidly. In a short time the flames 
 sank became weak and flickering by-and-by they shot out 
 only in fits the crackling of the timbers died away the sur- 
 rounding darkness deepened and ere long the faint light was 
 overpowered by the thick volumes of smoke that rose from the 
 ruins of the house and its murdered inhabitants. 
 
 " Now, boys," said the captain, " all is safe we may go. 
 Remimber, every man of you, what you've sworn this night on 
 the book an' althar of God not on a heretic Bible. If you 
 perjure yourselves, you may hang us ; but let me tell you, for 
 your comfort, that if you do there is them livin' that will take 
 care the lase of your own lives will be but short." 
 
 After this we dispersed every man to his own home. 
 
 Reader, not many months elapsed ere I saw the bodies of 
 this captain, whose name was Patrick Devann, and all those 
 who were actively concerned in the perpetration of this deed of 
 horror, withering in the wind, where they hung gibbetted near 
 the scene of their nefarious villainy ; and while I inwardly 
 thanked heaven for my own narrow and almost undeserved 
 escape, I thought in my heart how seldom, even in this world, 
 justice fails to overtake the murderer, and to enforce the 
 righteous judgment of God that "whoso sheddeth man's 
 blood, by man shall his blood be shed." 
 
 This tale of terror is, unfortunately, too true. The scene of hellish 
 murder detailed in it lies at Wildgoose Lodge, in the county of Louth, 
 within about four miles of Carrickmacross, and nine of Dundalk. No 
 such multitudinous murder has occurred, under similar circumstances, 
 except the burning of the Sheas in the county of Tipperary. The name 
 of the family burned in Wildgoose Lodge was Lynch. One of them 
 had, shortly before this fatal night, prosecuted and convicted some of 
 the neighbouring Ribbonmen, who visited him with severe marks of 
 their displeasure in consequence of his having refused to enrol himself 
 as a member of their body. 
 
 The language of the story is partly fictitious ; but the facts are pretty 
 closely such as were developed during the trial of the murderers. Both 
 parties were Roman Catholics. There were, if the author mistake not, 
 either twenty-five or twenty-eight of those who took an active part in 
 the burning hanged and gibbetted in different parts of the county of 
 Louth. Devann, the ringleader, hung for some months in chains, 
 within about a hundred yards of his own house, and about half a mile 
 from Wildgoose Lodge. His mother could neither go into nor out of 
 her cabin without seeing his body swinging from the gibbet. Her usual 
 exclamation on looking at him was, " God be good to the sowl of my 
 poor marthyr ! " The peasantry, too, frequently exclaimed on seeing 
 him, " Poor Paddy ! " a gloomy fact that speaks volumes.
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 
 
 ON the following evening the neighbours were soon assembled 
 about Ned's hearth, in the same manner as on the night 
 preceding. 
 
 And we may observe, by the way, that although there was a 
 due admixture of opposite creeds and conflicting principles, yet 
 even then, and the time is not so far back, such was their 
 cordiality of heart and simplicity of manners, when contrasted 
 with the bitter, and rancorous spirit of the present day, that the 
 very remembrance of the harmony in which they lived is at 
 once pleasing and melancholy. 
 
 After some preliminary chat "Well, Shane," said Andy 
 Morrow, addressing Shane Fadh, "will you give us an account 
 of your wedding ? I'm told it was the greatest let-out that ever 
 was in this country, before or since." 
 
 "And you may say that, Mr. Morrow," said Shane. "I was 
 at many a wedding myself, but never at the likes of my own, 
 barring Tim Lanigan's, that married Father Corrigan's niece." 
 
 " I believe," said Andy, " that, too, was a dashing one ; how- 
 ever, it's your own we want. Come, Nancy, fill these measures 
 again, and let us be comfortable, at all events ; and give Shane 
 a double one, for talking's druthy work. I'll pay for this 
 round." 
 
 When the liquor was got in, Shane, after taking a draught, 
 laid down his pint, pulled out his steel tobacco-box, and after 
 twisting off a chew between his teeth, closed the box, and 
 commenced the story of his wedding. 
 
 "When I was a Brine-Oge," 1 said Shane, " I was as wild as 
 an unbroken cowlt no divilment was too hard for me ; and so 
 signs on it, for there wasn't a piece of mischief done in the 
 parish but was laid at my door and the dear knows I had 
 enough of my own to answer for, let alone to be set down for 
 that of other people ; but, any way, there was many a thing 
 done in my name when I knew neither act nor part about it. 
 One of them I'll mintion. Dick Cuillenan, father to Paddy, 
 
 1 A young man full of fun and frolic.
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 201 
 
 that lives at the crass roads, beyant Gunpowdher Lodge, was 
 over head and ears in love with Jimmy Finigan's eldest 
 daughter, Mary, then, sure enough, as puity a girl as you'd 
 meet in a fair indeed, I think I'm looking at her, with her 
 fair flaxen ringlets hanging over her shoulders, as she used to 
 pass our house, going to mass of a Sunday. God rest her 
 sowl, she's now in glory that was before she was my wife. 
 Many a happy day we passed together ; and I could take it to 
 my death that an ill word, let alone to rise our hands to one 
 another, never passed between us only one day, that a word 
 or two happened about the dinner, in the middle of Lent, being 
 a little too late, so that the horses were kept nigh hand half-an- 
 hour out of the plough ; and I wouldn't have valued that so 
 much, only that it was Bealcam 1 Doherty that joined me in 
 ploughing that year and I was vexed not to take all I could 
 out of him, for he was a raal Turk himself. 
 
 "I disremimber now what passed between us as to words, 
 but I know I had a duck-egg in my hand, and when she spoke 
 I raised my arm, and nailed poor Larry Tracy, our servant 
 boy, between the two eyes with it, although the crathur was 
 ating his dinner quietly forenent me, not saying a word. 
 
 " Well, as I tould you, Dick was ever after her, although her 
 father and mother would rather see her under fowv/than joined 
 to any of that connection ; and as for herself, she couldn't bear 
 the sight of him he was sich an upsetting, conceited puppy, 
 that thought himself too good for every girl. At any rate, he 
 tried often and often, in fair and market, to get striking up with 
 her ; and both coming from and going to mass 'twas the same 
 way, for ever after and about her, till the state he was in spread 
 over the parish like wildfire. Still, all he could do was of no 
 use ; except to bid him the time of day, she never entered into 
 discoorse with him at all, at all. But there was no putting the 
 likes of him off; so he got a quart of spirits in his pocket one 
 night, and, without saying a word to mortal, off he sets, full 
 speed, to her father's, in order to brake the thing to the family. 
 
 " Mary might be about seventeen at this time, and her mother 
 looked almost as young and fresh as if she hadn't been married 
 at all. When Dick came in you may be sure they were all 
 surprised at the sight of him. But they were civil people, and 
 the mother wiped a chair, and put it over near the fire for him 
 to sit down upon, waiting to hear what he'd say, or what he 
 wanted, although they could give a purty good guess as to that, 
 
 1 Crooked mouth.
 
 202 SHANE FADff'S WEDDING. 
 
 but they only wished to put him off with as little offince as 
 possible. When Dick sot awhile, talking about what the price 
 of hay and oats would be in the following summer, and other 
 subjects that he thought would show his knowledge of farming 
 and cattle, he pulls out his bottle, encouraged to it by their civil 
 way of talking, and telling the ould couple that as he came over 
 on his kailyee* he had brought a drop in his pocket to sweeten 
 the discoorse, axing Susy Finigan, the mother, for a glass to send 
 it round with, at the same time drawing over his chair close to 
 Mary, who was knitting her stocken up beside her little brother 
 Michael, and chatting to the gorsoon, for fraid that Cuillenan 
 might think she paid him any attention. When Dick got along- 
 side of her, he began, of coorse, to pull out her needles and spoil 
 her knitting, as is customary before the young people come to 
 close spaking. Mary, howsomever, had no welcome for him ; 
 so says she, ' You ought to know, Dick Cuillenan, who you spake 
 to before you make the freedom you do.' 
 
 " ' But you don't know,' says Dick, 'that I am a great hand at 
 spoiling the girls' knitting ; it's a fashion I've got," says he. 
 
 " ' It's a fashion, then,' says Mary, ' that'll be apt to get you a 
 broken mouth some time.' 2 'Then,' says Dick, 'whoever does 
 that must marry me.' 
 
 '"And them that gets you will have a prize to brag of,' says 
 she. ' Stop yourself, Cuillenan ; single your freedom and double 
 your distance, if you plase ; I'll cut my coat off no such 
 cloth.' 
 
 "'Well, Mary,' says he, 'maybe, \l you don't, as good will; 
 but you won't be so cruel as all that comes to ; the worst side 
 of you is out, I think.' 
 
 " He was now beginning to make greater freedom, but Mary 
 rises from her seat and whisks away with herself, her cheeks as 
 red as a rose with vexation at the fellow's imperance. 'Very 
 well,' says Dick, ' off you go ; but there's as good fish in the say 
 as ever was catched. I'm sorry to see, Susy,' says he to her 
 mother, 'that Mary's no friend of mine, and I'd be mighty glad 
 to find it otherwise ; for, to tell the truth, I'd wish to become 
 
 1 Kailyee a friendly evening visit. 
 
 2 It is no unusual thing in Ireland for a country girl to repulse a 
 fellow whom she thinks beneath her, if not by a flat at least by a flatten- 
 ing refusal; nor is it seldom that the "argumentum fistycuffium " is 
 resorted to on such occasions. I have more than once seen a disagree- 
 able lover receive, from the fair hand which he sought, so masterly a 
 blow that a bleeding nose rewarded his ambition and silenced for a time 
 his importunity.
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 203 
 
 connected with the family. In the manetime, hadn't you better 
 get us a glass till we drink one bottle on the head of it, any 
 way?' 
 
 " 'Why, then, Dick Cuillenan,' says the mother, 'I don't wish 
 you anything else than good luck and happiness ; but, as to 
 Mary, she's not for you herself, nor would it be a good match 
 between the families at all. Mary is to have her grandfather's 
 sixty guineas, and the two moulleens^ that her uncle Jack left 
 her four years ago has brought her a good stock for any farm. 
 Now, if she married you, Dick, where's the farm to bring her 
 to ? surely, it's not upon them seven acres of stone and bent, 
 upon the long Esker, that I'd let my daughter go to live. So, 
 Dick, put up your bottle, and in the name of God go home, 
 boy, and mind your business ; but, above all, when you want 
 a wife, go to them that you may have a right to expect, and not 
 to a girl like Mary Finigan, that could lay down guineas where 
 you could hardly find shillings.' 
 
 " ' Very well, Susy,' says Dick, nettled enough, as he well 
 might ; ' I say to you, just as I say to your daughter, if you be 
 proud, there's no force.'" 
 
 "But what has this to do with you, Shane?" asked Andy 
 Morrow. " Sure we wanted to hear an account of your wed- 
 ding, but instead of that, it's Dick Cuillenan's history you're 
 giving us." 
 
 "That's jist it," said Shane ; " sure, only for this same Dick, 
 I'd never get Mary Finigan for a wife. Dick took Susy's 
 advice, bekase, after all, the undacent drop was in him, or he'd 
 never have brought the bottle out of the house at all ; but, 
 faith, he riz up, put the whisky in his pocket, and went home 
 with a face on him as black as my hat with venom. Well, 
 things passed on till the Christmas following, when one night, 
 after the Finigans had all gone to bed, there comes a crowd of 
 fellows to the door, thumping at it with great violence, and 
 swearing that if the people within wouldn't open it immediately, 
 it would be smashed into smithereens. The family, of coorse, 
 were all alarmed ; but, somehow or other, Susy herself got 
 suspicious that it might be something about Mary ; so up she 
 gets, and sends the daughter to her own bed, and lies down 
 herself in the daughter's. 
 
 " In the manetime Finigan got up, and, after lighting a 
 candle, opened the door at once. 'Come, Finigan,' says a 
 strange voice, ' put out the candle, except you wish to make 
 
 1 Cows without horns.
 
 204 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 
 
 a candlestick of the thatch,' says he ' or to give you a prod of 
 a bagnet under the ribs,' says he. 
 
 " It was a folly for one man to go to bell-the-cat with a whole 
 crowd ; so he blew the candle out, and next minute they rushed 
 in, and went as straight as a rule to Mary's bed. The mother 
 all the time lay close, and never said a word. At any rate, 
 what could be expected, only that, do what she could, at the 
 long run she must go. So, accordingly, after a very hard 
 battle on her side, being a powerful woman, she was obliged to 
 travel but not till she had left many of them marks to 
 remimber her by ; among the rest, Dick himself got his nose 
 split on his face with the stroke of a churn-staff, so that he 
 carried half a nose on each cheek till the day of his death. 
 Still, there was very little spoke, for they didn't wish to betray 
 themselves on any side. The only thing that Finigan could 
 hear was my name repated several times, as if the whole thing 
 was going on under my direction; for Dick thought that if there 
 was any one in the parish likely to be set down for it, it was me. 
 
 " When Susy found they were for putting her behind one 
 of them on a horse, she rebelled again, and it took near a 
 dozen of boys to hoist her up ; but one vagabone of them, that 
 had a rusty broad-sword in his hand, gave her a skelp with the 
 flat side of it that subdued her at once, and off they went. 
 Now, above all nights in the year, who should be dead but my 
 own full cousin, Denis Fadh God be good to him ! and I, 
 and Jack and Dan, his brothers, while bringing home whisky 
 for the wake and berrin, met them on the road. At first we 
 thought them distant relations coming to the wake, but when I 
 saw only one woman among the set, and she mounted on a 
 horse, I began to suspect that all wasn't right. I accordingly 
 turned back a bit, and walked near enough without their seeing 
 me to hear the discoorse, and discover the whole business. In 
 less than no time I was back at the wake-house, so I up and 
 tould them what I saw, and off we set, about forty of us, with 
 good cudgels, scythe-sneds, and hooks, fully bent to bring her 
 back from them, come or go what would. And troth, sure 
 enough, we did it; and I was the man myself that rode after 
 the mother on the same horse that carried her off. 
 
 " From this out, when and wherever I got an opportunity, 
 I whispered the soft nonsense, Nancy, into poor Mary's ear, 
 until I put my comedher^- on her, and she couldn't live at all 
 
 1 Comedher come hither alluding to the burden of an old love 
 charm which is still used by the young of both sexes on May morn 
 ing. It is a literal translation of the Irish word "gutsho."
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 205 
 
 without me. But I was something for a woman to look at then, 
 anyhow, standing six feet two in my stocking soles, which, you 
 know, made them call me Shane Fadh. 1 At that time I had 
 a dacent farm of fourteen acres in Crocknagooran the same that 
 my son Ned has at the present time ; and though, as to wealth, 
 by no manner of manes fit to compare with the Finigans, yet, 
 upon the whole, she might have made a worse match. The 
 father, however, wasn't for me ; but the mother was. So after 
 drinking a bottle or two with the mother, Sarah Traynor, her 
 cousin, and Mary, along with Jack Donnellan on my part, in 
 their own barn, unknownst to the father, we agreed to make 
 a runaway match of it ; appointed my uncle, Brian Slevin's, 
 as the house we'd go to. The next Sunday was the day 
 appointed ; so I had my uncle's family prepared, and sent two 
 gallons of whisky, to be there before us, knowing that neither 
 the Finigans nor my own friends liked stinginess. 
 
 "Well, well, after all, the world is a strange thing it's myself 
 hardly knows what to make of it. It's I that did dote night and 
 day upon that girl ; and indeed there was them that could have 
 seen me in Jimmaiky for her sake, for she was the beauty of the 
 county, not to say of the parish, for a girl in her station. For 
 my part, I could neither ate nor sleep lor thinking that she was 
 so soon to be my own married wife, and to live under my roof. 
 And when I'd think of it, how my heart would bounce to my 
 throat with downright joy and delight. The mother had made 
 us promise not to meet till Sunday, for fraid of the father 
 becoming suspicious; but, if I was to be shot for it, I couldn't 
 hinder myself from going every night to the great flowering 
 white-thorn that was behind their garden ; and although she 
 knew I hadn't promised to come, yet there she still was : some- 
 thing, she said, tould her I would come. 
 
 " The next Sunday we met at Althadhatuan wood, and I'll 
 never forget what I felt when I was going to the green at St. 
 Patrick's Chair, where the boys and girls met on Sunday ; but 
 there she was the bright eyes dancing with joy in her head to 
 see me. We spent the evening in the wood till it was dusk I 
 bating them all leaping, dancing, and throwing the stone ; for, 
 by my song, I thought I had the action of ten men in me ; she 
 looking on, and smiling like an angel, when I'd lave them miles 
 behind me. As it grew dusk they all went home, except herself 
 and me, and a few more, who maybe had something of the 
 same kind on hands. 
 
 1 Fadh is tall or long. 
 
 15
 
 206 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 
 
 "'Well, Mary,' says I, 'acushla machree, it's dark enough for 
 us to go ; and in the name of God let us be off.' The crathur 
 looked into my face, and got pale for she was very young then. 
 ' Shane,' says she, and she thrimbled like an aspen lafe, ' I'm 
 going to trust myself with you for ever for ever, Shane, 
 avourneen,' and her sweet voice broke into purty murmurs 
 as she spoke, ' whether for happiness or sorrow, God he only 
 knows. I can bear poverty and distress, sickness and want, 
 with you, but I can't bear to think that you should ever forget to 
 love me as you do now, or that your heart should ever cool to 
 me ; but I'm sure,' says she, ' you'll never forget this night, and 
 the solemn promises you made me, before God and the blessed 
 skies above us.' 
 
 " We were sitting at the time under the shade of a rowan 
 tree, and I had only one answer to make I pulled her to my 
 breast, where she laid her head and cried like a child, with her 
 cheek against mine. My own eyes wern't dry, although I felt 
 no sorrow; but but I never forgot that night and I never 
 will." 
 
 He now paused a few minutes, being too much affected to 
 proceed. 
 
 " Poor Shane," said Nancy in a whisper to Andy Morrow, 
 "night and day he's thinking about that woman; she's now 
 dead going on a year, and you would think by him, although 
 he bears up very well before company, that she died only 
 yestherday but indeed it's he that was always the kind- 
 hearted, affectionate man ; and a better husband never broke 
 bread." 
 
 " Well," said Shane, resuming the story, and clearing his 
 voice, " it's a great consolation to me, now that she's gone, to 
 think that I never broke the promise I made her that night ; 
 for, as I tould you, except in regard of the duck-egg, a bitther 
 word never passed between us. I was in a passion then, for a 
 wonder, and bent on showing her that I was a dangerous man 
 to provoke ; so jist to give her a spice of what I could do, I 
 made Larry feel it and may God forgive me for raising my 
 hand even then to her. But sure he would be a brute that 
 would beat such a woman except by proxy. When it was clear 
 dark we set off, and after crossing the country for two miles, 
 reached my uncle's, wheie a great many of my friends were 
 expecting us. As soon as we came to the door I struck it two 
 or three times, for that was the sign, and my aunt came out, and 
 taking Mary in her arms, kissed her, and, with a thousand 
 welcomes, brought us both in.
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 207 
 
 "You all know that the best of aiting and dhrinking is 
 provided when a runaway couple is expected ; and indeed there 
 was galore'*- of both there. My uncle and all that were within 
 welcomed us again ; and many a good song and hearty jug of 
 punch was sent round that night. The next morning my uncle 
 went to her father's and broke the business to him at once. 
 Indeed, it wasn't very hard to do, for I believe it reached 
 him before he saw my uncle at all ; so she was brought home 
 that day, and on the Thursday night after, I, my father, uncle, 
 and several other friends, went there and made the match. She 
 had sixty guineas that her grandfather left her, thirteen head of 
 cattle, two feather and two chaff beds, with sheeting, quilts, and 
 blankets ; three pieces of bleached linen, and a flock of geese 
 of her own rearing upon the whole, among ourselves, it wasn't 
 aisy to gel such a fortune. 
 
 " Well, the match was made, and the wedding-day appointed ; 
 but there was one thing still to be managed, and that was how 
 to get over the standing at mass on Sunday, to make satisfac- 
 tion for the scandal we gave the church by running away with 
 one another but that's all stuff, for who cares a pin about 
 standing, when three halves of the parish are married in the 
 same way. The only thing that vexed me was that it would 
 keep back the wedding-day. However, her father and my uncle 
 went to the priest and spoke to him, trying, of coorse, to get us 
 off of it, but he knew we were fat geese, and was in for giving us 
 a plucking. Hut, tut ! he wouldn't hear of it at all, not he ; for 
 although he would ride fifty miles to sarve either of us, he 
 couldn't brake the new orders that he had got only a few days 
 before that from the bishop. No ; we must stand for it would 
 be setting a bad example to the parish ; and if he would let us 
 pass, how could he punish the rest of his flock, when they'd be 
 guilty of the same thing? 
 
 " ' Well, well, your reverence,' says my uncle, winking at her 
 father, 'if that's the case it can't be helped, anyhow they must 
 only stand, as many a dacent father and mother's child has done 
 before them, and will again, plase God your reverence is right 
 in doing your duty.' 
 
 "'True for you, Brian,' says his reverence; 'and yet, God 
 knows, there's no man in the parish would be sorrier to see such 
 a dicent, comely young couple put upon a level with all the 
 scrubs of the parish ; and I know, Jimmy P'inigan, it would 
 go hard with your young, bashful daughter to get through 
 
 1 Galore more than enough great abundance.
 
 2o8 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 
 
 with it, having the eyes of the whole congregation staring on 
 her.' 
 
 " ' Why, then, your reverence, as to that,' says my uncle, who 
 was jist as stiff as the other was stout, 'the bashfulest of them 
 will do more nor that to get a husband.' 
 
 " ' But you tell me,' says the priest, ' that the wedding-day is 
 fixed upon ; how will you manage there ?' 
 
 " ' Why, put it off for three Sundays longer, to be sure,' says 
 the uncle. 
 
 " ' But you forget this, Brian,' says the priest, ' that good luck 
 or prosperity never attends the putting off of a wedding.' 
 
 " Now here, you see, is where the priest had them for they 
 knew that as well as his reverence himself so they were in a 
 puzzle again. 
 
 " ' It's a disagreeable business,' says the priest ; ' but the 
 truth is, I could get them off with the bishop only for one thing 
 I owe him five guineas of altar-money, and I'm so far back in 
 dues that I'm not able to pay him. If I could enclose this to 
 him in a letter, I would get them off at once, although it would 
 be bringing myself into trouble with the parish afterwards ; but, 
 at all events,' says he, ' I wouldn't make every one of you both ; 
 so, to prove that I wish to sarve you, I'll sell the best cow in my 
 byre and pay him myself, rather than their wedding-day should 
 be put off, poor things, or themselves brought to any bad luck 
 the Lord keep them from it ! ' 
 
 " While he was speaking he stamped his foot two or three 
 times on the flure, and the housekeeper came in. ' Katty,' says 
 he, ' bring us in a bottle of whisky ; at all events, I can't let you 
 away,' says he, ' without tasting something, and drinking luck 
 to the young folks.' 
 
 "'In troth,' says Jimmy Finigan, 'and begging your rever- 
 ence's pardon, the sorra cow you'll sell this bout, anyhow, on 
 account of me or my childhre, bekase I'll lay down on the nail 
 what'll clear you and the bishop ; and in the name of goodness, 
 as the day is fixed and all, let the crathurs not be disappointed.' 
 
 "'Jimmy,' says my uncle, 'if you go to that, you'll pay but 
 your share, for 1 insist upon laying down one-half, at laste.' 
 
 "At any rate they came down with the cash, and after 
 drinking a bottle between them, went home in choice spirits 
 entirely at their good luck in so aisily getting us off. When 
 they had left the house a bit the priest sent after them. 
 'Jimmy,' says he to Finigan, 'I forgot a circumstance, and 
 that is to tell you that I will go and marry them at your own 
 house, and bring Father James, my curate, with me.' 'Oh,
 
 SHANE FADWS WEDDING. 209 
 
 wurrah ! no,' said both ; ' don't mention that, your reverence, 
 except you wish to break their hearts, out and out ! Why, that 
 would be a thousand times worse nor making them stand to do 
 penance. Doesn't your reverence know that if they hadn't the 
 pleasure of running for the bottle the whole wedding wouldn't 
 be worth three-halfpence?' 'Indeed I forgot that, Jimmy.' 
 ' But sure,' says my uncle, ' your reverence and Father James 
 must be at it, whether or not ; for that we intended from the 
 first.' 'Tell them I'll run for the bottle too,' says the priest, 
 laughing ; ' and will make some of them look sharp, never 
 fear.' Well, by my song, so far all was right ; and maybe 
 it's we that weren't glad maning Mary and myself that there 
 was nothing more in the way to put off the wedding-day. 
 So, as the bridegroom's share of the expense always is to 
 provide the whisky, I'm sure, for the honour and glory of taking 
 the blooming young crathur from the great lot of bachelors that 
 were all breaking their hearts about her, I couldn't do less nor 
 finish the thing dacently knowing, besides, the high doings 
 that the Finigans would have of it for they were always looked 
 upon as a family that never had their heart in a trifle when it 
 would come to the push. So, you see, I and my brother 
 Mickey, my cousin Tom, and Dom'nick Nulty, went up into the 
 mountains to Tim Cassidy's still-house, where we spent a 
 glorious day, and bought fifteen gallons of stuff, that one drop 
 of it would bring the tear, if possible, to a young widdy's eye 
 that had berrid a bad husband. Indeed, this was at my father's 
 bidding, who wasn't a bit behindhand with any of them in 
 cutting a dash. 'Shane,' says he to me, 'you know the 
 Finigans of ould, that they won't be contint with what would 
 do another, and that except they go beyant the thing entirely 
 they won't be satisfied. They'll have the whole country-side at 
 the wedding, and we must let them see that we have a spirit 
 and a faction of our own,' says he, ' that we needn't be ashamed 
 of. They've got all kinds of ateables in cartloads, and as we're 
 to get the drinkables, we must see and give as good as they'll 
 bring. I myself, and your mother, will go round and invite all 
 we can think of, and let you and Mickey go up the hills to Tim 
 Cassidy, and get fifteen gallons of whisky, for I don't think less 
 will do us.' 
 
 " This we accordingly complied with, as I said, and surely 
 better stuff never went down the red lane 1 than the same 
 whisky; for the people knew nothing about watering it then, at 
 
 1 Humorous periphrasis for throat.
 
 2io SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 
 
 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 Jimmy 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 skriek of 
 day. From six o'clock my own faction, friends and neighbours, 
 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 selvages 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. 
 
 "To make a long story short, so large a bridegroom's party 
 was never seen in that country before, save and except Tim 
 Lanigan's, 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 had 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 strideways, 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 obligated to sit where the crupper 
 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
 
 SHANE FASH'S WEDDING. 2tt 
 
 when they came to a gallop ; but that same was nothing at all 
 to a trot. 
 
 " From the time they began to come that morning, you may 
 be sartain that the glass was no cripple, anyhow although, for 
 fear of accidents, we took care not to go too deep. At eight 
 o'clock we sat down to a rousing breakfast, for we thought it 
 best to eat a trifle at home, lest they might think that what we 
 were to get at the bride's breakfast might be thought any 
 novelty. As for my part, I was in such a state that I couldn't 
 let a morsel crass my throat, nor did I know what end of me 
 was uppermost. After breakfast they all got their cattle, and 
 I my hat and whip, and was ready to mount, when my uncle 
 whispered to me that I must kneel down and ax my father and 
 mother's blessing, and forgiveness for all my disobedience and 
 offinces towards them and also to requist the blessing of my 
 brothers and sisters. Well, in a short time I was down ; and, 
 my goodness ! such a hullaballoo of crying as was there in 
 a minute's time ! ' Oh, Shane Fadh Shane Fadh, acushla 
 machreet' says my poor mother in Irish, 'you're going to break 
 up the ring about your father's hearth and mine going to lave 
 us, avourneen, for ever, and we to hear your light foot and 
 sweet voice, morning, noon, and night, no more! Oh 1' says 
 she, ' it's you that was the good son all out ; and the good 
 brother, too. Kind and cheerful was your beautiful voice, and 
 full of love and affection was your heart ! Shane, avourneen 
 deelish, if ever I was harsh to you, forgive your poor mother, 
 that will never see you more on her flure as one of her own 
 family.' 
 
 " Even my father, that wasn't much given to crying, couldn't 
 speak, but went over to a corner and cried till the neighbours 
 stopped him. As for my brothers and sisters, they were all in 
 an uproar ; and I myself cried like a Trojan, merely bekase I 
 see them at it. My father and mother both kissed me, and 
 gave me their blessing ; and my brothers and sisters did the 
 same, while you'd think all their hearts would break. ' Come, 
 come,' says my uncle, * I'll have none of this ; what a hubbub 
 you make, and your son going to be well married going to be 
 joined to a girl that your betters would be proud to get into 
 connection with. You should have more sense, Rose Campbell 
 you ought to thank God that he had the luck to come acrass 
 such a colleen for a wife ; that it's not going to his grave, instead 
 of into the arms of a purty girl and what's better, a good girl. 
 So quit your blubbering, Rose ; and you, Jack,' says he to my 
 father, ' that ought to have more sense, stop this instant. Clear
 
 212 SHANE FAD&S WEDDING. 
 
 off, every one of you, out of this, and let the young boy go to 
 his horse. Clear out, I say, or by the powers I'll look at 
 them three stags of hussies ; by the hand of my body, they're 
 blubbering bekase it's not their own story this blessed day. 
 Move bounce ! and you, Rose Oge, if you're not behind 
 Dudley Fulton in less than no time, by the hole of my coat, I'll 
 marry a wife myself, and then where will the twenty guineas be 
 that I'm to lave you.' God rest his soul, and yet there was a 
 tear in his eye all the while even in spite of his joking ! 
 
 " Anyhow, it's easy knowing that there wasn't sorrow at the 
 bottom of their grief; for they were all now laughing at my 
 uncle's jokes, even while their eyes were red with the tears. 
 My mother herself couldn't but be in good humour, and join her 
 smile with the rest. 
 
 " My uncle now drove us all out before him ; not, however, 
 till my mother had sprinkled a drop of holy water on each of 
 us, and given me and my brother and sisters a small taste of 
 blessed candle to prevent us from sudden death and accidents. 
 My father and she didn't come with us 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 Danellon, 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 Danellon'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 to 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; 1 some- 
 times another would find himself headforemost 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 
 
 1 Dyke or drain.
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 213 
 
 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 Irwin'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 and heard the 
 shouting, he cocked his ears, and set off with himself full 
 speed ; but before he had got far he was without a rider, and 
 went galloping up to the bride's house, the bridle hangin" about 
 his feet. Billy, however, having taken a glass or two, wasn't to 
 be cowed ; so he came up in great blood, and swore he would 
 ride him to America, sooner than let the bottle be won from the 
 bridegroom's party. 
 
 " When we arrived, there was nothing but shaking hands and 
 kissing, and all kinds of slewsthering men kissing men 
 women kissing women and after that men and women all 
 through other. Another breakfast was ready for us ; and here 
 we all sat down, myself and my next relations in the bride's 
 house, and the others in the barn and garden ; for one house 
 wouldn't hold the half of us. Eating, however, was all only 
 talk. Of coorse we took some of the poteen again, and in a 
 short time afterwards set off along the paved road to the priest's 
 house to be tied as fast as he could make us, and that was fast 
 enough. Before we went out to mount our horses, though, 
 there was jist such a hullaballoo with the bride and her friends 
 as there was with myself; but my uncle soon 'put a stop to it, 
 and in five minutes had them breaking their hearts laughing. 
 
 " Bless my heart, what doings ! what roasting and boiling ! 
 and what tribes of beggars and shulers, and vagabonds of all 
 sorts and sizes, were sunning themselves about the doors wishing 
 us a thousand times long life and happiness. There was a fiddler 
 and piper. The piper was to stop in my father-in-law's while we 
 were going to be married, to keep the neighbours that were met 
 there shaking their toes while we were at the priest's ; and the 
 fiddler was to come with ourselves, in order, you know, to have a 
 
 1 Became restive.
 
 214 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 
 
 dance at the priest's house, and to play for us coming and going; 
 for there's nothing like a taste of music when one's on for sport. 
 As we were setting off, ould Mary M'Quade from Kilnashogtie, 
 who was sent for bekase she understood charms, and had the 
 name of being lucky, tuck myself aside. ' Shane Fadh,' says 
 she, ' you're a young man well to look upon ; may God bless you 
 and keep you so ; and there's not a doubt but there's them here 
 that wishes you ill that would rather be in your shoes this blessed 
 day, with your young colleen bawn^ that'll be your wife before the 
 sun sets, plase the heavens. There's ould Fanny Barton, the 
 wrinkled thief of a hag, that the Finigans axed here for the 
 sake of her decent son-in-law, who ran away with her daughter 
 Betty, that was the great beauty some years ago. Her breath's 
 not good, Shane, and many a strange thing's said of her. Well, 
 maybe I know more about that nor I'm going to mintion, anyhow. 
 More betoken that it's not for nothing the white hare haunts the 
 shrubbery behind her house.' ' But what harm could she do me, 
 Sonsy Mary ? ' says I for she was called Sonsy ' we have often 
 sarved her one way or other.' 
 
 " ' Ax me no questions about her, Shane,' says she ; ' don't I 
 know what she did to Ned Donnelly, that was to be pitied, if 
 ever a man was to be pitied, for as good as seven months after 
 his marriage until I relieved him ; 'twas gone to a thread he 
 was, and didn't they pay me decently for my throuble.' 
 
 "'Well, and what am I to do, Mary?' says I, knowing very 
 well that what she sed was thrue enough, although I didn't wish 
 her to see that I was afeard. 
 
 " ' Why,' says she, ' you must first exchange money with me, 
 and then, if you do as I bid you, you may lave the rest to 
 myself.' 
 
 " I then took out, begad, a dacent lot of silver say a crown 
 or so for my blood was up, and the money was flush and 
 gave it to her.; for which I got a cronagh-bawn halfpenny in 
 exchange. 
 
 " ' Now,' says she, ' Shane, you must keep this in your com- 
 pany, and for your life and sowl don't part with it for nine days 
 after your marriage ; but there's more to be done,' says she 
 ' hould out your right knee.' So with this she unbuttoned three 
 buttons of my buckskins, and made me loose the knot of my 
 garther on the right leg. ' Now,' says she, ' if you keep them 
 loose till after the priest says the words, and won't let the 
 money I gave you go out of your company for nine days, along 
 
 1 Fair girl.
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 215 
 
 with something else I'll do that you're to know nothing about, 
 there's no fear of all their pishthroges. n She then pulled off her 
 right shoe, and threw it after us for luck. 
 
 " We were now all in motion once more the bride riding 
 behind my man, and the bridesmaid behind myself a fine 
 bouncing girl she was, but not to be mintioned in the one year 
 with my darlin' in troth, it wouldn't be aisy getting such a 
 couple as we were the same day, though it's myself that says 
 it. Mary, dressed in a black castor hat, like a man's, a white 
 muslin coat, with a scarlet silk handkercher about her neck, 
 with a silver buckle and a blue ribbon, for luck, round her 
 waist ; her fine hair wasn't turned up at all, at all, but hung 
 down in beautiful curls on her shoulders ; her eyes you would 
 think were all light; her lips as plump and as ripe as cherries 
 and maybe it's myself that wasn't to that time of day without 
 tasting them, anyhow ; and her teeth so even, and as white as 
 a burnt bone. The day bate all for beauty. I don't know 
 whether it was from the lightness of my own spirit it came, but 
 I think that such a day I never saw from that to this. Indeed, 
 I thought everything was dancing and smiling about me, and 
 sartainly every one said that such a couple hadn't been married, 
 nor such a wedding seen in the parish, for many a long year 
 before. 
 
 "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 boord. Many of them 
 got tosses this way, though it all passed in good humour. But 
 
 1 Charms of an evil nature.
 
 216 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 
 
 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 cruht 1 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 humour ; 
 and, accordingly, as regularly as they fell they were sure to get 
 a cheer. 
 
 " 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 parlour. 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 
 bateing myself out of it. I got a whisper of this ; so, by my song, 
 I was determined to cut them all out in that, so 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 it's an old custom. 
 While the priest was going over the business I kept my eye 
 about me, and, sure enough, there were seven or eight fellows 
 all waiting to snap at her. When the ceremony drew near a 
 close I got up on one leg, so that I could bounce to my feet like 
 lightning, and when it was finished I got her in my arm before 
 you could say Jack Robinson, and, swinging her behind the 
 priest, gave her the husband's first kiss. The next minute there 
 was a rush after her ; but, as I had got the first, it was but fair 
 that they should come in according as they could, I thought, 
 bekase, you know, it was all in the coorse of practice ; but 
 hould, there were two words to be said to that, for what does 
 Father Dollard do but shoves them off and a fine stout 
 shoulder he had shoves them off like children, and, getting his 
 arms about Mary, gives her half-a-dozen smacks at least oh, 
 consuming to the one less that mine was only a cracker to 
 them. The rest then all kissed her, one after another, according 
 
 1 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 ciuht means.
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 217 
 
 as they could come in to get one. We then went straight to his 
 reverence's barn, which had been cleared out for us the day 
 before by his own directions, where we danced for an 
 hour or two, and his reverence and his curate along with 
 us. 
 
 " When this was over we mounted again, the fiddler taking 
 his ould situation behind my uncle. You know it is usual, after 
 getting the knot tied, to go to a public-house or shebeen to get 
 some refreshment after the journey ; so, accordingly, we went to 
 little lame Larry Spooney's grandfather to him that was trans- 
 ported the other day for staling Bob Beat/s sheep. He was 
 called Spooney himself for his sheep-staling, ever since Paddy 
 Keenan made the song upon him, ending with ' his house never 
 wants a good ram-horn spoon ' ; so that, let people say what 
 they will, these things run in the blood. Well, we went to his 
 shebeen house, but the tithe of us couldn't get into it; so we sot 
 on the green before the door, and, by my song, we took 1 dacently 
 with hint) anyhow; and, only for my uncle, it's odds but we 
 would have been all fuddled. 
 
 " It was now that I began to notish a kind of coolness 
 between my party and the bride's, and for some time I didn't 
 know what to make of it. I wasn't long so, however ; for my 
 uncle, who still had his eyes about him, comes over to me and 
 says, ' Shane, I doubt there will be bad work amongst these 
 people, particularly betwixt the Dorans and the Flanagans. The 
 truth is that the old business of the lawshoot will break out, and 
 except they're kept from drink, take my word for it, there will 
 be blood spilled. The running for the bottle will be a good 
 excuse,' says he, ' so I think we had better move home before 
 they go too far in the drink.' 
 
 " Well, any way, there was truth in this ; so, accordingly, the 
 reckoning was ped, and, as this was the thrate of the weddiners 
 to the bride and bridegroom, every one of the men clubbed his 
 share, but neither I nor the girls anything. Ha ha ha 1 Am 
 I alive at all ? I never ha ha ha ! I never laughed so 
 much in one day as I did in that, and I can't help laughing at 
 it yet ! Well, well ! when we all got on the top of our horses, 
 and sich other iligant cattle as we had the crowning of a king 
 was nothing to it. We were now purty well, I thank you, as to 
 liquor ; and as the knot was tied, and all safe, there was no end 
 to our good spirits ; so, when we took the road, the men were 
 in high blood, particularly Billy Cormick, the tailor, who had a 
 
 1 Drunk.
 
 218 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 
 
 pair of long cavaldry spurs upon him, that he was scarcely able 
 to walk in and he not more nor four feet high. The women, 
 too, were in blood, having faces upon them, with the hate of the 
 day and the liquor, as full as trumpeters. 
 
 " There was now a great jealousy among them that were bint 
 for winning the bottle; and when one horseman would cross 
 another, striving to have the whip hand of him when they'd set 
 off, why, you see, his horse would get a cut of the whip itself for 
 his pains. My uncle and I, however, did all we could to pacify 
 them; and their own bad horsemanship, and the screeching of 
 the women, prevented any strokes at that time. Some of them 
 were ripping up ould sores against one another as they went 
 along; others, particularly the youngsters, with their sweethearts 
 behind them, coorting away for the life of them ; and some might 
 be heard miles off, singing and laughing; and you may be sure 
 the fiddler behind my uncle wasn't idle no more nor another. 
 In this way we dashed on gloriously, till we came in sight of the 
 Dumbhill, where we were to start for the bottle. And now 
 you might see the men fixing themselves on their saddles, 
 sacks, and suggawns ; and the women tying kerchiefs and 
 shawls about their caps and bonnets to keep them from flying 
 off, and then gripping their fore-riders hard and fast by the 
 bosoms. When we got to the Dumbhill there were five or six 
 fellows that didn't come with us to the priest's, but met us with 
 cudgels in their hands, to prevent any of them from starting 
 before the others, and to show fair play. 
 
 "Well, when they were all in a lump horses, mules, rag- 
 herays, and asses some, as I said, with saddles, some with 
 none ; and all jist as I tould you before the word was given, 
 and off they scoured, myself along with the rest ; and divil be 
 off me, if ever I saw such another sight but itself befoie or 
 since. Off they skelped through thick and thin, in a cloud of 
 dust like a mist about us ; but it was a mercy that the life 
 wasn't trampled out of some of us ; for before we had gone fifty 
 perches the one-third of them were sprawling atop of one 
 another on the road. As for the women, they went down right 
 and left sometimes bringing the horsemen with them ; and 
 many of the boys getting black eyes and bloody noses on the 
 stones. Some of them, being half blind with the motion and 
 the whisky, turned off the wrong way, and galloped on, 
 thinking they had completely distanced the crowd ; and it 
 wasn't until they cooled a bit that they found out their 
 mistake. 
 
 " But the best sport of all was when they came to the Lazy
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 219 
 
 Cornet^ jist at Jack Gallagher'sy?^^, 1 where the water came out 
 a good way acrass the road ; being in such a flight, they either 
 forgot or didn't know how to turn the angle properly, and plash 
 went above thirty of them, coming down right on the top of one 
 another, souse in the pool. By this time there was about a dozen 
 of the best horsemen a good distance before the rest, cutting one 
 another up for the bottle. Among these were the Dorans and 
 Flanagans; but they, you see, wisely enough dropped their women 
 at the beginning, and only rode single. I myself didn't mind 
 the bottle, but kept close to Mary, for fraid that, among sich a 
 divil's pack of half-mad fellows, anything might happen her. 
 At any rate I was next the first batch : but where do you think 
 the tailor was all this time ? Why, away off like lightning, miles 
 before them flying like a swallow ; and how he kept his sate so 
 long has puzzled me from that day to this. But, anyhow, truth's 
 best there he was topping the hill ever so far before them. 
 After all the unlucky crathur nearly missed the bottle, for when 
 he turned to the bride's house, instead of pulling up as he ought 
 to do why, to show his horsemanship to the crowd that was out 
 looking at them, he should begin to cut up the horse right and 
 left, until he made him take the garden ditch in full flight, 
 landing him among the cabbages. About four yards or five from 
 the spot where the horse lodged himself was a well, and a purty 
 deep one too, by my word ; but not a sowl present could tell 
 what become of the tailor, until Owen Smith chanced to look 
 into the. well, and saw his long spurs jist above the water ; so 
 he was pulled up in a purty pickle, not worth the washing ; but 
 what did he care ? although he had a small body, the sorra one 
 of him but had a sowl big enough for Golias or Sampson the 
 Great. 
 
 "As soon as he got his eyes clear, right or wrong, he insisted 
 on getting the bottle. But he was late, poor fellow, for before 
 he got out of the garden two of them cums up Paddy Doran 
 and Peter Flanagan, cutting one another to pieces, and not the 
 length of your nail between them. Well, well, that was a terrible 
 day, sure enough. In the twinkling of an eye they were both off 
 the horses, the blood streaming from their bare heads, struggling 
 to take the bottle from my father, who didn't know which of them 
 to give it to. He knew if he'd hand to one the other would take 
 offince, and then he was in a great puzzle, striving to razon with 
 
 1 Flush is a pool of water that spreads nearly across a road. It is 
 usually fed by a small mountain stream, and in consequence of rising 
 and falling rapidly, it is called " Flush."
 
 220 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 
 
 them ; but long Paddy Doran caught it while he was spaking 
 to Flanagan, and the next instant Flanagan measured him with 
 a heavy loaded whip, and left him stretched upon the stones. 
 And now the work began, for by this time the friends of both 
 rarties came up and joined them. Such knocking down, such 
 roaring among the men, and screeching and clapping of hands 
 and wiping of heads among the women when a brother, or a son, 
 or a husband would get his gruel. Indeed, out of a fair I never saw 
 anything to come up to it. But during all this work the busiest 
 man among the whole set was the tailor, and what was worse of 
 all for the poor crathur, he should single himself out against both 
 parties, bekase you see he thought they were cutting him out of 
 his right to the bottle. 
 
 " They had now broken up the garden gate for weapons, all 
 except one of the posts, and fought into the garden ; when 
 nothing should sarve Billy but to take up the large heavy post, 
 as if he could destroy the whole faction on each side. Accord- 
 ingly, he came up to big Matthew Flanagan, and was rising it 
 jist as if he'd fell him, when Matt, catching him by the nape 
 of the neck and the waistband of the breeches, went over very 
 quietly and dropped him a second time, heels up, into the well, 
 where he might have been yet, only for my mother-in-law, who 
 dragged him out with a great deal to do ; for the well was too 
 narrow to give him room to turn. 
 
 "As for myself and all my friends, as it happened to be my 
 own wedding, and at our own place, we couldn't take part with 
 either of them ; but we endeavoured all in our power to red 1 
 them, and a tough task we had of it, until we saw a pair of whips 
 going hard and fast among them, belonging to Father Corrigan 
 and Father James, his curate. Well, it's wonderful how soon a 
 priest can clear up a quarrel ! In five minutes there wasn't a 
 hand up instead of that they were ready to run into mouse- 
 holes. 
 
 "'What, you murderers,' says his reverence, 'are you bint to 
 have each other's blood upon your heads, ye vile infidels, ye 
 cursed unchristian Antherntarians ? are you going to get 
 yourselves hanged like sheep-stalers ? down with your sticks, I 
 command you. Do you know will ye give yourselves time to 
 see who's spaking to you, you bloodthirsty set of Episco- 
 palians ? I command you, in the name of the Catholic Church 
 and the Blessed Virgin Mary, to stop this instant, if you don't 
 wish me,' says he, 'to turn you into stocks and stones where 
 
 1 Separate or pacify.
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 221 
 
 you stand, and make world's wonders of you as long as you 
 live. Doran, if you rise your hand more, I'll strike it dead on 
 your body, and to your mouth you'll never carry it while you 
 have breath in your carcass,' says he. ' Clear oft", you Flan- 
 agans, you butchers you, or by St. Dominick I'll turn the heads 
 round upon your bodies in the twinkling of an eye, so that 
 you'll not be able to look a quiet Christian in the face again. 
 Pretty respect you have for the decent couple in whose house 
 you have kicked up such a hubbub ! Is this the way people are 
 to be deprived of their dinners on your accounts, you fungaleer- 
 ing thieves?' 
 
 " ' Why then, plase your reverence, by the hem I say, 
 Father Corrigan, it wasn't my fault, but that villain Flanagan's, 
 for he knows I fairly won the bottle and would have distanced 
 him, only that when I was far before him, the vagabone, he 
 galloped acrass me on the way, thinkin" to thrip up the horse.' 
 
 " ' You lying scoundrel,' says the priest, ' how dare you tell 
 me a falsity,' says he, ' to my face ? how could he gallop acrass 
 you if you were far before him ? Not a word more, or I'll leave 
 you without a mouth to your face, which will be a double share 
 of provision and bacon saved anyway. And Flanagan, you 
 were as much to blame as he, and must be chastised for your 
 raggamuffinly conduct,' says he, ' and so must you both, and all 
 your party, particularly you and he, as the ringleaders. Right 
 well I know it's the grudge upon the lawsuit you had, and not 
 the bottle, that occasioned it ; but, by St. Peter, to Loughderg 
 both of you must tramp for this.' 
 
 " 'Ay, and by St. Pether, they both desarve it as well as a 
 thief does the gallows,' said a little blustering voice belonging 
 to the tailor, who came forward in a terrible passion, looking 
 for all the world like a drowned rat. ' Ho, by St. Pether, they 
 do, the vagabones ; for it was myself that won the bottle, your 
 reverence ; and by this and by that,' says he, 'the bottle I'll 
 have, or some of their crowns will crack for it ; blood or whisky 
 I'll have, your reverence, and I hope that you'll assist me ! ' 
 
 " ' Why, Billy, are you here ? ' says Father Corrigan, smiling 
 down upon the figure the fellow cut, with his long spurs and his 
 big whip ' what in the world tempted you to get on horseback, 
 Billy?' 
 
 " ' By the powers, I was miles before them,' says Billy, 'and 
 after this day, your reverence, let no man say that I couldn't 
 ride a steeplechase acrass Crocknagooran.' 
 
 " ' Why, Billy, how did you stick on, at all at all,' says his 
 reverence. -,
 
 22.-! SHANE EADff'S WEDDING. 
 
 " ' How do I know how I stuck on,' says Billy, ' nor whether 
 I stuck on at all or not? all I know is that I was on horseback 
 before leaving the Dumbhill, and that I found them pulling me 
 by the heels out of the well in the corner of the garden, and 
 that, your reverence, when the first was only topping the 
 hill there below, as Lanty Magowran tells me, who was looking 
 on.' 
 
 " ' Well, Billy,' says Father Corrigan, ' you must get the 
 bottle ; and as for you Dorans and Flanagans, I'll make 
 examples of you for this day's work that you may reckon on. 
 You are a disgrace to the parish, and what's more, a disgrace to 
 your priest. How can luck or grace attind the marriage of any 
 young couple that there's such work at ? Before you leave this 
 you must all shake hands, and promise never to quarrel with 
 each other while grass grows or water runs ; and if you don't, 
 by the blessed St. Dominick, I'll exkimnicate ye both, and all 
 belonging to you into the bargain ; so that ye'll be the pitiful 
 examples and shows to all that look upon you.' 
 
 " ' Well, well, your reverence,' says my father-in-law, ' let all 
 bygones be bygones ; and, please God, they will before they go 
 be better friends than ever they were. Go now and clane your- 
 selves, take the blood from about your faces, for the dinner's 
 ready an hour agone; but if you all respect the place you're in, 
 you'll show it, in regard of the young crathurs that's going, in 
 the name of God, to face the world together, and of coorse 
 wishes that this day at laste should pass in pace and quietness. 
 Little did I think there was any friend or neighbour here that 
 would make so little of the place or people, as was done for 
 nothing at all, in the face of the country.' 
 
 "'God he sees,' says my mother-in-law, 'that there's them 
 here this day we didn't desarve this from, to rise such a 
 narration, as if the house was a shebeen or a public-house ! 
 It's myself didn't think either me or my poor colleen here, not 
 to mention the dacent people she's joined to, would be made so 
 little of as to have our place turned into a play-acthur for a 
 play-acthur couldn't be worse.' 
 
 " ' Well,' says my uncle, ' there's no help for spilt milk, I tell 
 you, nor for spilt blood either; tare-an-ounty, sure we're all 
 Irishmen, relations, and Catholics through other, and we 
 oughtn't to be this way. Come away to dinner by the powers, 
 we'll duck the first man that says a loud word for the remainder 
 of the day. Come, Father Corrigan, and carve the goose, or 
 the geese, for us for, by my sannies, I bleeve there's a baker's 
 dozen of them ; but we've plenty of Latin for them, and your
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 223 
 
 reverence and Father James here understands that langidge, 
 anyhow larned enough there, I think, gintlemen.' 
 
 "'That's right, Brian,' shouts the tailor 'that's right; there 
 must be no fighting: by the powers, the first man that attempts 
 it, I'll brain him fell him to the earth like an ox, if all 
 belonging to him was in my way.' 
 
 "This threat from the tailor went further, I think, in putting 
 them into good humour nor even what the priest said. They 
 then washed and claned themselves, and accordingly went 
 to their dinners. Billy himself marched with his terrible whip 
 in his hand, and his long cavaldry spurs sticking near ten inches 
 behind him, draggled to the tail like a bantling cock after a 
 shower. But maybe there was more draggled tails and bloody 
 noses nor poor Billy's, or even nor was occasioned by the 
 fight ; for after Father Corrigan had come several of them 
 dodged up, some with broken shins and heads, and wet 
 clothes, that they'd got on the way by the mischances of 
 the race, particularly at the Flush. But I don't know how it 
 was ; somehow the people in them days didn't value these 
 things a straw. They were far hardier then nor they are now, 
 and never went to law, at all at all. Why, I've often known 
 skulls to be broken, and the people to die afterwards, and there 
 would be nothing more about it, except to brake another skull 
 or two for it ; but neither crowners guest, nor judge, nor jury 
 was ever troubled at all about it. And so sign's on it, people 
 were then innocent, and not up to law and counsellors as they 
 are now. If a person happened to be killed in a fight at a fair 
 or market, why he had only to appear after his death to one of 
 his friends, and get a number of masses offered up for his sowl, 
 and all was right ; but now the times are clane altered, and 
 there's nothing but hanging and transporting for such things ; 
 although that won't bring the people to life again." 
 
 " I suppose," said Andy Morrow, "you had a famous dinner, 
 Shane." 
 
 "'Tis you that may say that, Mr. Morrow," replied Shane; 
 " but the house, you see, wasn't able to hould one-half of us ; 
 so there was a dozen or two tables borrowed from the neigh- 
 bours, and laid one after another in two rows, on the green, 
 beside the river that ran along the garden hedge, side by 
 side. At one end Father Corrigan sat, with Mary and myself, 
 and Father James at the other. There were three five-gallon 
 kegs of whisky, and I ordered my brother to take charge 
 of them, and there he sat beside them, and filled the bottles 
 as they were wanted, bekase, if he had left that job to strangers,
 
 224 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 
 
 many a spalpeen there would make away with lots of it. 
 Mayrone, such a sight as the dinner was ! I didn't lay my 
 eye on the fellow of it since, sure enough, and I'm now an ould 
 man, though I was then a young one. Why, there was a 
 pudding boiled in the end of a sack ; and troth it was a 
 thumper, only for the straws for, you see, when they were 
 making it, they had to draw long straws acrass in order to 
 keep it from falling asunder : a fine plan it is, too. Jack 
 M'Kenna, the carpenther, carved it with a hand-saw, and if he 
 didn't curse the same straws, I'm not here. ' Draw them out, 
 Jack,' said Father Corrigan 'draw them out. It's asy known, 
 Jack, you never ate a polite dinner, you poor awkward spalpeen, 
 or you'd have pulled out the straws the first thing you did, man 
 alive.' Such lashins of corned beef, and rounds of beef, and legs 
 of mutton, and bacon turkeys and geese, and barn-door fowls, 
 young and fat. They may talk as they will, but commend me to 
 a piece of good ould bacon, ate with crock butther, and phaiies 
 and cabbage. Sure enough they leathered away at everything, 
 but this and the pudding were the favourites. Father Corrigan 
 gave up the carving in less than no time, for it would take him 
 half a day to sarve them all, and he wanted to provide for 
 number one. After helping himself, he set my uncle to it, and 
 maybe he didn't slash away right and left. There was half-a- 
 dozen gorsoons carrying about the beer in cans, with froth upon 
 it like barm but that was beer in arnest, Nancy I'll say no 
 more. 
 
 " When the dinner was over, you would think there was as much 
 left as would sarve a regiment ; and sure enough, a right hungry, 
 ragged regiment was there to take care of it, though, to tell the 
 truth, there was as much taken into Finigan's as would be sure 
 to give us all a rousing supper. Why, there was such a troop 
 of beggars men, women, and childhre sitting over on the 
 sunny side of the ditch, as would make short work of the whole 
 dinner had they got it. Along with Father Corrigan and me 
 was my father and mother, and Mary's parents ; my uncle, 
 cousins, and nearest relations on both sides. Oh, it's Father 
 Corrigan, God rest his sowl, he's now in glory, and so he was 
 then also how he did crow and laugh! 'Well, Matthew 
 Finigan,' says he, ' I can't say but I'm happy that your Colleen 
 Bawn here has lit upon a husband that's no discredit to the 
 family and it is herself didn't drive her pigs to a bad market,' 
 says he. 'Why, in troth, Father, avourneen,' says my mother- 
 in-law, 'they'd be hard to plase that couldn't be satisfied with 
 them she got ; not saying but she had her pick and choice of
 
 SHANE FADH % S WEDDING. 225 
 
 many a good offer, and might have got richer matches ; but 
 Shane Fadh M'Cawell, although you're sitting there beside 
 my daughter, I'm prouder to see you on my own flure, the 
 husband of my child, nor if she'd got a man with four times 
 your substar.ee. 5 
 
 " ' Never heed the girls for knowing where to choose,' says 
 his reverence, slyly enough ; ' but, upon my word, only she gave 
 us all the slip, to tell the truth, I had another husband than 
 Shane in my eye for her, and that was my own nevvy, Father 
 James's brother here.' 
 
 '"And I'd be proud of the connection,' says my father-in-law; 
 ' but, you see, these girls won't look much to what you or I'll 
 say in choosing a husband for themselves. How-and-iver, not 
 making little of your nevvy, Father Michael, I say he's not to 
 be compared with that same bouchal sittin' beside Mary there.' 
 1 No, nor by the powers-o'-war, never will,' says Billy Cormick 
 the tailor, who had come over and slipped in on the other side, 
 betune Father Corrigan and the bride 'by the powers-o'- 
 war, he'll never be fit to be compared with me, I tell you, till 
 yesterday comes back again.' 
 
 "'Why, Billy,' says the priest, ' you're in every place.' 'But 
 where I ought to be!' says Billy; 'and that's hard and fast 
 tackled to Mary Bane, the bride here, instead of that steeple of 
 a fellow she has got,' says the little cock. 
 
 " ' Billy, I thought you were married,' said Father Corrigan. 
 
 " ' Not I, your reverence,' says Billy ; ' but I'll soon do some- 
 thing, Father Michael I have been threatened this long time, 
 but I'll do it at last.' 
 
 " ' He's not exactly married, sir,' says my uncle ; ' there's a 
 colleen present' (looking at the bridesmaid) 'that will soon have 
 his name upon her.' 
 
 " 'Very good, Billy,' says the priest ; ' I hope you will give us 
 a rousing wedding equal, at least, to Shane Fadh's.' 
 
 " 'Why, then, your reverence, except I get such a darling as 
 Molly Bane here and by this and by that, it's you that is the 
 darling, Molly asthore what come over me, at all at all, that I 
 didn't think of you?' says the little man, drawing closer to her, 
 and poor Mary smiling good-naturedly at his spirit. 
 
 " ' Well, and what if you did get such a darling as Molly 
 Bane there ? ' says his reverence. 
 
 " 'Why, except I get the likes of her for a wife upon second 
 thoughts, I don't like marriage, anyway,' said Billy, winking 
 against the priest ' I'll lade such a li!e as your reverence ; 
 and, by the powers, it's a thousand pities that I wasn't made
 
 226 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 
 
 into a priest instead of a tailor. For, you see, if I had,' says he, 
 giving a verse of an old song 
 
 " ' For, you see, if I had, 
 
 It's I'd be the lad 
 That would show all my people such laming ; 
 
 And when they'd go wrong, 
 
 Why, instead of a song, 
 I'd give them a lump of a sarmin.' 
 
 " ' Billy,' says my father-in-law, ' why don't you make a hearty 
 dinner, man alive ? Go back to your sate and finish your male 
 you're aiting nothing to signify.' ' Me ! ' says Billy ' why, I'd 
 scorn to ate a hearty dinner ; and I'd have you to know, Matt 
 Finigan, that it wasn't for the sake of your dinner I came here, 
 but in regard to your family, and bekase I wished him well 
 that's sitting beside your daughter ; and it ill becomes your 
 father's son to cast up your dinner in my face, or any one of my 
 family ; but a blessed minute longer I'll not stay among you. 
 Give me your hand, Shane Fadh, and you, Mary may good- 
 ness grant you pace and happiness every night and day you 
 both rise out of your beds. I made that coat your husband 
 has on his back beside you, and a betther fit was never 
 made ; but I didn't think it would come to my turn to have 
 my dinner cast up this a-way, as if I was aiting it for 
 charity.' 
 
 '"Hut, Billy,' says I, 'sure it was all out of kindness; he 
 didn't mane to offind you.' 
 
 '' ' It's no matter,' says Billy, beginning to cry; ' he rtiV/orfind 
 me ; and it's low days with me to bear an affront from him, or 
 the likes of him ; but by the powers-o'-war,' says he, getting 
 into a great rage, ' I won't bear it only as you're an old man 
 yourself, I'll not rise my hand to you ; but let any man now 
 that has the heart to take up your quarrel come out and stand 
 before me on the sod here.' 
 
 " Well, by this time you'd tie all that were present with three 
 straws, to see Billy stripping himself, and his two wrists not 
 thicker than drumsticks. While the tailor was raging, for he 
 was pretty well up with what he had taken, another person 
 made his appearance at the far end of the boreen that led to 
 the green where we sot. He was mounted upon the top of a 
 sack that was upon the top of a sober-looking baste enough, 
 God knows ; he jogging along at his ase, his legs dangling 
 down from the sack on each side, and the long skirts of his 
 coat hanging down behind him. Billy was now getting pacified,
 
 SHANE t?ADH>S WEDDING. 227 
 
 bekase they gave way to him a little ; so the fun went round, 
 and they sang, roared, danced, and coorted right and left. 
 
 " When the stranger came as far as the skirt of the green, 
 he turned the horse over quite nathural to the wedding ; and 
 sure enough, when he jogged up, it was Friar Rooney himself, 
 with a sack of oats, for he had been questing Well, sure the 
 ould people couldn't do less nor all go over to put the failtah? 
 on him. ' Why, then,' says my father and mother-in-law, ' 'tis 
 yourself, Friar Rooney, that's as welcome as the flowers of 
 May ; and see who's here before you Father Corrigan and 
 Father Bollard.' 
 
 " ' Thank you, thank you, Molshy thank you, Matthew 
 troth, I know that 'tis I am welcome.' 
 
 " ' Ay, and you're welcome again, Father Rooney,' said my 
 father, going down and shaking hands with him, 'and I'm proud 
 to see you here. Sit down, your reverence here's everything 
 that's good, and plinty of it, and if you don't make much of 
 yourself, never say an ill fellow dealt with you.' 
 
 " The friar stood while my father was speaking, with a 
 pleasant, contented face upon him, only a little roguish and 
 droll. 
 
 " ' Hah ! Shane Fadh,' says he, smiling dryly at me, ' you did 
 them all, I see. You have her there, the flower of the parish, 
 blooming beside you ; but I knew as much six months ago, 
 ever since I saw you bid her good-night at the hawthorn. 
 Who looked back so often, Mary, eh ? Ay, laugh and blush 
 do throth, 'twas I that caught you, but you didn't see me, 
 though. Well, a colleen, and if you did, too, you needn't be 
 ashamed of your bargain, anyhow. You see, the way I came 
 to persave yees that evening was this but I'll tell it by-and-by. 
 In the manetime,' says he, sitting down and attacking a fine 
 piece of corn-beef and greens, ' I'll take care of a certain 
 acquaintance of mine,' says he. ' How are you, reverend 
 gintlemen of the Secttlarity? You'll permit a poor friar to sit 
 and ate his dinner in your presence, I humbly hope.' 
 
 " ' Frank,' says Father Corrigan, ' lay your hand upon your 
 conscience, or upon your stomach, which is the same thing, and 
 tell us honestly how many dinners you ate on your travels 
 among my parishioners this day.' 
 
 " 'As I'm a sinner, Michael, this is the only thing to be called 
 
 1 Questin When an Irish priest or friar collects corn or money from 
 the people in a gratuitous manner the act is called "qucstin." 
 
 2 Welcome.
 
 228 SHANE FADPPS WEDDING. 
 
 a dinner I ate this day. Shane Fadh Mary, both your 
 healths, and God grant you all kinds of luck and happiness, 
 both here and hereafter! All your healths in gincral ; gintle- 
 men seculars ! ' 
 
 " 'Thank you, Frank,' said Father Corrigan. ' How did you 
 speed to-day?" 
 
 " ' How can any man speed that comes after you?' says the 
 friar. ' I'm after travelling the half of the parish for that poor 
 bag of oats that you see standing against the ditch.' 
 
 " ' In other words, Frank,' says the priest, ' you took Althad- 
 hawan in your way, and in about half-a-dozen houses filled 
 your sack, and then turned your horse's head towards the good 
 cheer, by way of accident only.' 
 
 " 'And was it by way of accident, Mr. Secular, that I got you 
 and that iloquent young gintleman, your curate, here before 
 me ? Do you feel that, man of the world ? Father Jame?, 
 your health, though you're a good young man as far as saying 
 nothing goes ; but it's better to sit still than rise up and fall, so 
 I commend you for your discrationj says he ; ' but I'm afeard 
 your master there won't make you much fitter for the kingdom 
 of heaven, anyhow.' 
 
 " ' I believe, Father Corrigan,' says my uncle, who loved to 
 see the priest and the friar at it, ' that you've met with your 
 match I think Father Rooney's able for you.' 
 
 " ' Oh, sure,' says Father Corrigan, ' he was joker to the college 
 of the Sorebones in Paris ; he got as much education as enabled 
 him to say mass in Latin, and to beg oats in English, for his 
 jokes.' 
 
 " 'Troth, and,' says the friar, 'if you were to get your lar.iing 
 on the same terms you'd be guilty of very little knowledge ; 
 why, Michael, I never knew you to attempt a joke but once, 
 and I was near shedding tears, there was something very 
 sorrowful in it.' 
 
 " This brought the laugh against the priest. ' Your health, 
 Molshy,' says he, winking at my mother-in-law and then giving 
 my uncle, who sat beside him, a nudge j ' I believe, Brian, I'm 
 giving it to him.' "Tis yourself that is,' says my uncle ; 'give 
 him a wipe or two more.' ' Wait till he answers the last,' says 
 the friar. 
 
 '"He's always joking,' says Father James, 'when he thinks 
 he'll make anything by it.' 
 
 '"Ay !' says the friar, 'then God help you both if you were 
 left to your jokes for your feeding ; for a poorer pair of gintle- 
 men wouldn't be found in Christendom.'
 
 SHANE FAD ITS WEDDING, 229 
 
 "'And I believe,' says Father Corrigan, 'if you depinded for 
 your feeding upon your divinity instead of your jokes you'd be 
 as poor as a man in the last stage of a consumption.' 
 
 "This threw the laugh against the friar, who smiled himself; 
 but he was a dry man that never laughed much. 
 
 " ' Sure,' says the friar, who was never at a loss, ' I have 
 yourself and your nephew for examples that it's possible to live 
 and be well fed without divinity.' 
 
 " 'At any rate,' says my uncle, putting in his tongue, ' I think 
 you're both very well able to make divinity a joke betune you,' 
 says he. 
 
 "'Well done, Brian,' says the friar, 'and so they are, for I 
 believe it is the only subject they can joke upon ; and I beg 
 your pardon, Michael, for not excepting it before ; on that 
 subject I allow you to be humorsome.' 
 
 "' If that be the case, then,' says Father Corrigan, ' I must 
 give up your company, Frank, in order to avoid the force of 
 bad example ; for you're so much in the habit of joking on 
 everything else that you're not able to except even divinity.' 
 
 "'You may aisily give me up,' says the friar, 'but how will 
 you be able to forget Father Corrigan. I'm afcard you will find 
 his acquaintance as great a detriment to yourself as it is to 
 others in that respect.' 
 
 " ' What makes you say,' says Father James, who was more 
 in arnest than the rest, ' tint my uncle won't make me fit for 
 the kingdom of heaven ?' 
 
 " ' I had a pair of rasons for it, Jimmy,' says the friar : ' one 
 is, that he doesn't understand the subject himself ; and another 
 is, that you haven't capacity for it, even if he did. You've 
 a want of nathural parts a whackum here,' pointing to his 
 forehead. 
 
 ' ' I beg your pardon, Frank,' says Father James, ' I deny 
 your premises, and I'll now argue in Latin with you, if you wish, 
 upon any subject you please.' 
 
 ;i ' Come, then,' says the friar ' Kid-eat-ivy mare-cat-hay! 
 
 " ' Kid what ? ' says the other. 
 
 "'Kid-eat-ivy mare-eat-hay] answers the friar. 
 
 " ' I don't know what you're at,' says Father Jarnes ; ' but I'll 
 argue in Latin with you as long as you wish.' 
 
 '"Tut, man,' says Father Rooney, ' Latin's for schoolboys; 
 but come, now, I'll take you in another language I'll try you 
 in Greek In-tnud-eel-is in-day-none-is in-fir-tar-is in-oak- 
 none-is.' 
 
 " The curate looked at him, amazed, not knowing what
 
 230 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING, 
 
 answer to make. At last says he, ' I don't profess to know 
 Greek, bekase I never larned it but stick to the Latin, and I'm 
 not afeard of you.' 
 
 " ' Well, then,' says the friar, ' I'll give you a trial at that 
 Afflat te cants ter Forte dux fel flat in gather? 
 
 '"A flat-tay-cannisther Forty ducks fell flat in the gutthers!' 
 says Father James ' why, that's English ! ' 
 
 " ' English 1 ' says the friar ; ' oh, good-bye to you, Mr. 
 Secular ; if that's your knowledge of Latin, you're an honour 
 to your tachers and to your cloth.' 
 
 " Father Corrigan now laughed heartily at the puzzling the 
 friar gave Father James. 'James,' says he, 'never heed him ; 
 he's only pesthering you with bog-latin ; but, at any rate, to do 
 him justice, he's not a bad scholar, I can tell you that. . . . 
 Your health, Frank, you droll crathur your health. I have ' 
 only one fault to find with you, and that is, that you fast and 
 mortify yourself too much. Your fasting has reduced you from 
 being formerly a friar of very genteel dimensions to a cut of 
 corpulency that smacks strongly of penance fifteen stone at 
 least.' 
 
 " ' Why,' says the friar, looking down, quite plased entirely, 
 at the cut of his own waist, which, among ourselves, was no 
 trifle, and giving a growl of a laugh the most he ever gave ; 
 ' if what you pray here benefits you in the next life as much as 
 what I fast does me in this, it will be well for the world in 
 general, Michael.' 
 
 " * How can you say, Frank,' says Father James, ' with such 
 a carkage as that, that you're a poor friar ? Upon my credit, 
 when you die, I think the angels will have a job of it in wafting 
 you upwards.' 
 
 "'Jimmy, man, was it you that said it? why, my light's 
 beginning to shine upon you, or you never could have got out 
 so much,' says Father Rooncy, putting his hands over his brows 
 and looking up toardst him. ' But if you ever read scripthur, 
 which I suppose you're not overburdened with, you would know 
 that it says, " Blessed are the poor in spirit," but not blessed 
 are the poor in flesh now, mine is spiritual poverty.' 
 
 " ' Very true, Frank,' says Father Corrigan, ' I believe there's 
 a great dearth and poverty of spirituality about you, sure 
 enough. But of all kinds of poverty, commend me to a friar's. 
 Voluntary poverty's something, but it's the divil entirely for a 
 man to be poor against his will. You friars boast of this 
 voluntary poverty ; but if there's a fat bit in any part of the 
 parish, we, that are the lawful clargy, can't eat it but you're
 
 SHANE FADH>S WEDDING. 231 
 
 sure to drop in, just in the nick of time, with your voluntary 
 poverty.' 
 
 " ' I'm sure, if we do,' says the friar, 'it's nothing out of your 
 pocket, Michael. I declare, I believe you begrudge us the air 
 we breathe. But don't you know very well that our ordhers 
 are apostolic, and that, of coorse, we have a more primitive 
 appearance than you have.' 
 
 " ' No such thing,' says the other ; 'you, and the parsons, and 
 the fat bishops, are too far from the right place the only 
 difference between you is that you are fat and lazy by toleration, 
 whereas the others are fat and lazy by authority. You are 
 fat and lazy on your ould horses, jogging about from house 
 to house, and stuffing yourselves either at the table of other 
 people's parishioners, or in your own convents in Dublin 
 and elsewhere. They are rich, bloated gluttons, going about in 
 their coaches, and wallying in wealth. Now, we are the golden 
 mean, Frank, that live upon a little, and work hard for it. But, 
 plase God, the day will come when we will step into their places, 
 and be as we used to be.' 
 
 " ' Why, you cormorant,' says the friar, a little nettled, for the 
 dhrop was beginning to get up into his head 'sure, if we're fat 
 by toleration, we're only tolerably fat, my worthy secular ; but 
 how can you condemn them, when you only want to get into 
 their places, or have the face to tax any one with living upon the 
 people ? ' 
 
 " ' You see,' says the friar, in a whisper to my uncle, ' how I 
 sobered them in the laming, and they are good scholars for ail 
 that, but not near so deep read as myself. Michael,' says he, 
 ' now that I think on it sure I'm to be at Denis O'Flaherty's 
 Month's mind on Thursday next.' 
 
 " ' Indeed, I would not doubt you,' says Father Corrigan. 
 ' You wouldn't be apt to miss it.' 
 
 " ' Why, the widdy Flaherty asked me yesterday, and I think 
 that's proof enough that I'm not going unsent for.' 
 
 " By this time the company was hard and fast at the punch, 
 the songs, and the dancing. The dinner had been cleared 
 off, except what was before the friar, who held out wonderfully, 
 and the beggars and shulers were clawing and scoulding one 
 another about the divide. The dacentest of us went into the 
 house for a while, taking the fiddler with us, and the rest stayed 
 on the green to dance, where they were soon joined by lots of 
 the counthry people, so that in a short time there was a large 
 number entirely. After sitting for some time within, Mary and 
 I began, you may be sure, to get unasy, sitting palavering
 
 232 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 
 
 among a parcel of ould sober folks ; so at last out we slipped, 
 and the few other dacent young people that were with us, to 
 join the dance and shake our toe along with the rest of them. 
 When we made our appearance, the flure was instantly cleared 
 for us, and then she and I danced the Humours of Glin. 
 
 "Well, it's no matter it's all past now, and she lies low ; but 
 I may say that it wasn't very often danced in better style since, 
 I'd wager. Lord bless us what a drame the world is ! The 
 darling of my heart you war, avourneen machree. I think I 
 see her with the modest smile upon her face, straight, and fair, 
 and beautiful; and hem and when the dance was over, how 
 she stood leaning upon me, and my heart within melting to her, 
 and the look she'd give into my eyes and my heart too, as much 
 as to say, this is the happy day with me ; and the blush still 
 would fly acrass her face when I'd press her, unknowns! to the 
 bystanders, aginst my beating heart. A suilish machree, she is 
 now gone from me lies low, and it all appears like a drame to 
 me ; but hem God's will be done ! sure she's happy ! och, 
 och! 
 
 " Many a shake hands did I get from the neighbours' sons, 
 wishing me joy and I'm sure I couldn't do less than thrate 
 them to a glass, you know; and 'twas the same way with Mary. 
 Many a neighbour's daughter, that she didn't do more nor know 
 by eyesight maybe, would come up and wish her happiness in 
 the same manner, and she would say to me, ' Shane, avourneen, 
 that's such a man's daughter they're dacent friendly people, 
 and we can't do less nor give her a glass. 1 I, of coorse, would 
 go down and bring them over, after a little pulling making, 
 you see, as if they wouldn't come to where my brother was 
 handing out the native. 
 
 " In this way we passed the time till the evening came on, 
 except that Mary and the bridesmaid were sent for to dance 
 with the priests, who were within at the punch, in all their glory 
 Friar Kooney along with them, as jolly as a prince. I and 
 my man, on seeing this, were for staying with the company ; 
 but my mother, who 'twas that came for them, says, 'Never 
 mind the boys, Shane ; come in with the girls, I say. You're 
 just wanted at the present time, both of you ; follow me for an 
 hour or two, till their reverences within have a bit of a dance 
 with the girls in the back room we don't want to gather a 
 crowd about them.' Well, we went in, sure enough, for a 
 while ; but, I don't know how it was, I didn't at all feel comfort- 
 able with the priests ; for, you see, I'd rather sport my day with 
 the boys and girls upon the green. So I gives Jack the hard
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 233 
 
 word, 1 and in we went, when, behold you, there was Father 
 Corrigan planted upon the side of a settle^ Mary along with 
 him, both waiting till they'd have a fling of a dance together, 
 whilst the curate was capering on the flure before the brides- 
 maid, who was a purty dark-haired girl, to the tune of ' Kiss my 
 lady,' and the friar planted between my mother and mother-in- 
 law, one of his legs stretched out on a chair, he singing some 
 funny song or other, that brought the tears to their eyes with 
 laughing. 
 
 " Whilst Father James was dancing with the bridesmaid I 
 gave Mary the wink to come away from Father Corrigan, wishing, 
 as I tould you, to get out amongst the youngsters once more ; 
 and Mary herself, to tell the truth, although he was the priest, 
 was very willing to do so. I went over to her and says, ' Mary, 
 asthore, there's a friend without that wishes to spake to you." 
 
 "'Well,' says Father Corrigan, 'tell that friend that she's 
 better employed, and that they must wait, whoever they are. 
 I'm giving your wife, Shane,' says he, 'a little good advice that 
 she won't be the worse for, and she can't go now.' 
 
 " Mary in the meantime had got up, and was coming away, 
 when his reverence wanted her to stay till they'd finish their 
 dance. ' Father Corrigan,' says she, ' let me go now, sir, if you 
 plase, for they would think it bad threatment of me not to go out 
 to them.' 
 
 '"Troth, and you'll do no such thing, acushla,' sa\s he, 
 spaking so sweet to her; 'let them come in if they want you. 
 Shane,' says his reverence, winking at me, and spaking in a 
 whisper, ' stay here, you and the girls, till we take a hate at the 
 dancing don't you know that the ould women here and me will 
 have to talk over some things about the fortune ; you'll maybe 
 get more nor you expect. Here, Molshy,' says he to my mother- 
 in-law, 'don't let the youngsters out of this.' 
 
 "'Musha, Shane, ahagur,' says the ould woman, 'why will 
 yees go and lave the place? Sure you needn't be dashed before 
 them they'll dance themselves.' 
 
 "Accordingly we stayed in the room ; but just on the word 
 Mary gives one spring away, laving his reverence by himself on 
 the settle. ' Come away,' says she; ' lave them there, and let us 
 go to where I can have a dance with yourself, Shane.' 
 
 "Well, I always loved Mary; but at that minute, if it would 
 save her, I think I could spill my heart's blood for her. 
 
 1 A pass-word, sign, or brief intimation, touching something of 
 which a man is ignorant, that he may act accordingly.
 
 234 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 
 
 1 Mary,' says I, full to the throath, ' Mary, acushla agus asthore 
 machree? I could lose my life for you.' 
 
 " She looked in my face, and the tears came into her eyes. 
 'Shane, achora,' says she, 'amn't I your happy girl, at last?' 
 She was leaning over against my breast ; and what answer do 
 you think I made ? I pressed her to my heart. I did more 
 I took off my hat, and, looking up to God, I thanked him with 
 tears in my eyes for giving me such a treasure. ' Well, come 
 now,' says she, ' to the green.' So we went and it's she that 
 was the girl, when she did go among them, that threw them all 
 into the dark for beauty and figure. As fair as a lily itself did 
 she look so tall and illegant that you wouldn't think she was a 
 farmer's daughter at all ; so we left the priests dancing away, 
 for we could do no good before them. 
 
 " When we had danced an hour or so, them that the family 
 had the greatest regard for were brought in, unknowns! to the 
 rest, to drink lay. Mary planted herself beside me, and would 
 sit nowhere else ; but the friar got beside the bridesmaid, and I 
 surely obsarved that many a time she'd look over, likely to split, 
 at Mary, and it's Mary herself that gave her many's a wink to 
 come to the other side ; but, you know, out of manners, she was 
 obliged to sit quietly, though, among ourselves, it's she that was 
 like a hen on a hot griddle, beside the ould chap. It was now 
 that the bride's-cake was got. Old Sonsy Mary marched over, 
 and, putting the bride on her feet, got up on a chair and broke 
 it over her head, giving round a fudge* of it to every young 
 person in the house, and they again to their acquaintances ; but, 
 lo and behold you, who should insist on getting a whang of it 
 but the friar, which he rolled up in a piece of paper and put it in 
 his pocket. ' I'll have good fun,' says he, ' dividing this to-morrow 
 among the colleens when I'm collecting my oats the sorra one 
 of me but '11 make them give me the worth of it of something, if 
 it was only a fat hen or a square of bacon.' After tay the ould 
 folk got full of talk ; the youngsters danced round them ; the friar 
 sung like a thrush, and told many a droll story. The tailor had got 
 drunk a little too early, and had to be put to bed ; but he was 
 now as fresh as ever, and able to dance a hornpipe, which he did 
 on a door. The Dorans and the Flanagans had got quite thick 
 after drubbing one another Ned Doran began his coortship 
 with Alley Flanagan on that day, and they were married soon 
 after, so that the two factions joined, and never had another 
 
 1 The very pulse and delight of my heart. 
 
 2 A liberal portion torn off a thick cake.
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 235 
 
 battle until the day of her berrial, when they were at it as fresh 
 as ever. Several of those that were at the wedding were lying 
 drunk about the ditches, or roaring and swaggering and singing 
 about the place. The night falling, those that were dancing on 
 the green removed to the barn. Father Corrigan and Father 
 James weren't ill off; but as for the friar, although he was as 
 pleasant as a lark, there was hardly any such thing as making 
 him tipsy. Father Corrigan wanted him to dance. 'What!' 
 says he ; ' would you have me to bring on an earthquake, 
 Michael? but who ever heard of a follower of St. Dom'nick, 
 bound by his vow to voluntary poverty and mortifications 
 young couple, your health will anybody tell me who mixed 
 this, for they've knowledge worth a folio of the fathers ? 
 poverty and mortifications, going to shake his heel ? By the 
 bones of St. Dom'nick, I'd desarve to be suspinded if I did. Will 
 no one tell me who mixed this, I say, for they had a jewel of a 
 hand at it ? Och 
 
 " ' Let parsons prache and pray 
 
 Let priests, too, pray and prache, sir ; 
 What's the rason they 
 
 Don't practise what they tache, sir? 
 Forrnl, orrall, loll, 
 Forral, orrall, laddy 
 
 Sho da slainthah ma collenee agiis ma boiichalee. Hoigh, oigh, 
 oigh healths all, gintlemen seculars ! Molshy," says the friar 
 to my mother-in-law, ' send that bocaun 1 to bed poor fellow, 
 he's almost off rouse yourself, James ! It's aisy to see that 
 he's but young at it yet that's right he's sound asleep just 
 toss him into bed, and in an hour or so he'll be as fresh as a 
 daisy. 
 
 " ' Let parsons prache and pray 
 Forral, orrall, loll ' 
 
 " ' For dear's sake, Father Rooney,' says my uncle, running 
 in in a great hurry, 'keep yourself quiet a little; here's the 
 Squire and Master Francis coming over to fulfil their promise. 
 He would have come up airlier, he says, but that he was away 
 all day at the 'sizes.' 
 
 " 'Very well,' says the friar; 'let him come who's afeard? 
 mind yourself, Michael.' 
 
 " In a minute or two they came in, and we all rose up, of 
 
 1 A soft, unsophisticated youth.
 
 2 3 6 SHANE FADJTS WEDDING. 
 
 coorse, to welcome them. The Squire shuck hands with the 
 ould people, and afterwards with Mary and myself, wishing us 
 all happiness then with the two clergymen, and introduced 
 Master Frank to them ; and the friar made the young chap sit 
 beside him. The masther then took a sate himself, and looked 
 on while they were dancing with a smile of good humour- on 
 his face while they, all the time, would give new touches and 
 trebles, to show off all their steps before him. He was land- 
 lord both to my father and father-in-law ; and it's he that was 
 the good man, and the gintleman, every inch of him. They may 
 all talk as they will, but commend me. Mr. Morrow, to one of 
 the old squires of former times for a landlord. The priests, 
 with all their laming, were nothing to him for good breeding he 
 appeared so free, and so much at his ase, and even so respectful, 
 that I don't think there was one in the house but would put 
 their two hands under his feet to do him a sarvice. 
 
 "When he sat a while my mother-in-law came over with a 
 glass of nice punch that she had mixed, at laste equal to what 
 the friar praised so well, and making a low curtshy, begged 
 pardon for using such freedom with his honour, but hoped that 
 he would just taste a little to the happiness of the young couple. 
 He then drank our healths, and bhuck hands with us both a 
 second time, saying although I can't, at all at all, give it in 
 anything like his own words ' I am glad,' says he to Mary's 
 parents, 'that your daughter has made such a good choice' 
 throth, he did the Lord be merciful to his sowl God forgive 
 me for what I was going to say, and he a Protestant ; but if 
 ever one of yees went to heaven, Mr. Morrow, he did ' such a 
 prudent choice ; and I congr con grathulate you,' says he to 
 my father, ' on your connection with so industrious and respect- 
 able ar family. You are now beginning the world for yourselves,' 
 says he to Maiy and me, 'and I cannot propose a better 
 example to you both than that of your respective parents. 
 From this forrid,' says he, 'I'm to considher you my tenants; 
 and I wish to take this opportunity of informing you both that 
 should you act up to the opinion I entertain of you, by an 
 attentive coorse of industry and good management, you will 
 find in me an encouraging and indulgent landlord. I know, 
 Shane,' says he to me, smiling, a little knowingly enough too, 
 ' that you have been a little wild or so, but that's past, I trust. 
 You have now serious duties to perform, which you cannot 
 neglect but you will not neglect them ; and be assured, I 
 say again, that I shall feel pleasure in rendhering you every 
 assistance in my power in the cultiivation and improvement of
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 237 
 
 your farm.' 'Go over, both of you,' says my father, 'and thank 
 his honour, and promise to do everything he says.' Accord- 
 ingly, we did so ; I made my scrape as well as I could, and 
 Mary blushed to the eyes and dropped her curtshy. 
 
 " 'Ah ! ' says the friar, ' see what it is to have a good landlord 
 and a Christian gintleman to dale with. This is the feeling 
 which should always bind a landlord and his tenants together. 
 If I know your character, Squire Whitethorn, I believe you're 
 not the man that would put a Protestant tenant over the 
 head of a Catholic one, which shows, sir, your own good sense ; 
 for what is a difference of religion when people do wl.at 
 they ought to do ? Nothing but the name. I trust, sir, we 
 shall meet in a better place than this both Protestant and 
 Catholic.' 
 
 " ' I am happy, sir,' says the Squire, ' to hear such principles 
 from a man who I thought was bound by his creed to hould 
 different opinions.' 
 
 '"Ah, sir !' says the friar, 'you little know who you're talking 
 to, if you think so. I happened to be collecting a taste of oats, 
 with the permission of my friend, Doctor Corrigan here, for 
 I'm but a poor friar, sir, and dropped in by mere accident; 
 but you know the hospitality of our country, Squire ; and that's 
 enough go they would not allow me, and I was mintioning to 
 this young gintleman, your son, how we collected the oats, and 
 he insisted on my calling a generous, noble child ! I hopt?, 
 sir, you have got proper instructors for him ?' 
 
 " ' Yes,' said the Squire ; ' I'm taking care of that point ' 
 
 "'What do you think, sir, but he insists on my calling over 
 to-morrow, that he may give me his share of oats, as I told him 
 that I was a friar, and that he was a little parishioner of mine ; 
 but I added that that wasn't right of him, without his papa's 
 consint.' 
 
 '"Well, sir,' says the Squire, 'as he has promised, I will 
 support him ; so if you'll ride over to-morrow, you shall have a 
 sack of oats at all events, I shall send you a sack in the coorse 
 of the day.' 
 
 "'I humbly thank you, sir,' says Father Rooney ; 'and I 
 thank my noble little parishioner for his ginerosity to the poor 
 ould friar. Gc.d mark you to grace, my dear ; and wherever 
 you go, take the ould man's blessing along with you.' 
 
 "They then bid us good-night, and we all rose and saw 
 them to the door. 
 
 " Father Corrigan now appeared to be getting sleepy. 
 While this was going on I looked about me, but couldn't see 
 
 17
 
 238 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 
 
 Mary. The tailor was just beginning to get a little hearty once 
 more. Supper was talked of, but there was no one that could 
 ate anything ; even the friar was against it. The clargy now 
 got their horses, the friar laving his oats behind him; for we 
 promised to send them home, and something more along with 
 them the next day. Father James was roused up, but could 
 hardly stir with a heddick. Father Corrigan was correct 
 enough ; but when the friar got up he ran a little to the one 
 side, upsetting Sonsy Mary, that sot a little beyond him. He 
 then called over my mother-in-law to the dresser, and after 
 some collogtn' 1 she slipped two fat fowl, that had never been 
 touched, into one of his coat pockets, that was big enough to 
 hould a leg of mutton. My father then called me over, and 
 said, ' Shane,' says he, ' hadn't you better slip Father Rooney a 
 bottle or two of that whisky ; there's plenty of it there that 
 wasn't touched, and you won't be a bit the poorer of it, maybe, 
 this day twelve months.' I accordingly dliropped two bottles 
 of it into the other pocket, for his reverence wanted a balance, 
 anyhow. 
 
 "'Now,' says he, 'before I go, kneel down both of you, till I 
 give you my benediction.' 
 
 " We accordingly knelt down, and he gave us his blessing 
 in Latin my father standing at his shoulder to keep him 
 steady. 
 
 " After they went Mary threw the stocking all the unmarried 
 folks coming in the dark to see who it would hit. Bless my 
 sowl, but she was the droll Mary for what did she do, only put 
 a big brogue of her father's into it, that was near two pounds 
 weight ; and who should it hit on the bare sconce but Billy 
 Cormick, the tailor who thought he was fairly shot, for it 
 levelled the crathur at once, though that wasn't hard to do, 
 anyhow. 
 
 " This was the last ceremony ; and Billy was well continted 
 to get the knock, for you all know whoever the stocking strikes 
 upon is to be marrid first. After this my mother and mother- 
 in-law set them to the dancing and 'twas themselves that kept 
 it up till long after daylight the next morning but first they 
 called me in to the next room where Mary was : and and so 
 ends my wedding ; by the same token that I'm as dry as a 
 stick." 
 
 " Come, Nancy," says Andy Morrow, " replenish again for us 
 all, with a double measure for Shane Fadh because he well 
 desarves it." 
 
 1 Whispering.
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING. 239 
 
 ** Why, Shane," observed Alick, " you must have a terrible fine 
 memory of your own, or you couldn't tell it all so exact." 
 
 " There's not a man in the four provinces has sich a memory," 
 replied Shane. " I never hard that story yet, but I could 
 repate it in fifty years afterwards. I could walk up any town in 
 the kingdom, and let me look at the signs, and I would give 
 them to you agin jist exactly as they stood." 
 
 Thus ended the account of Shane Fadh's wedding ; and, 
 after finishing the porter, they all returned home, with an 
 understanding that they were to meet the next night in the same 
 place.
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 THERE never was a more unfounded calumny than that which 
 would impute to the Irish peasantry an indifference to educa- 
 tion. I may, on the contrary, fearlessly assert that the lower 
 orders of no country ever manifested such a positive inclination 
 for literary acquirements, and that, too, under circumstances 
 strongly calculated to produce carelessness and apathy on 
 this particular subject. Nay, I do maintain that he who is 
 intimately acquainted with the character of our countrymen 
 must acknowledge that their zeal for book learning not only is 
 strong and ardent, when opportunities of scholastic education 
 occur, but that it increases in proportion as these opportunities 
 are rare and unattainable. The very name and nature of hedge 
 schools are proof of this; for what stronger point could be 
 made out, in illustration of my position, than the fact that, 
 despite of obstacles whose very idea would crush ordinary 
 enterprise when not even a shed could be obtained in which 
 to assemble the children of an Irish village, the worthy 
 pedagogue selected the first green spot on the sunny side of a 
 quickset hedge which he conceived adapted for his purpose, 
 and there, under the scorching rays of a summer sun, and in 
 defiance of spies and statutes, carried on the work of instruction. 
 From this circumstance the name of hedge school originated ; 
 and, however it may be associated with the ludicrous, I 
 maintain that it is highly creditable to the character of the 
 people, and an encouragement to those who wish to see them 
 receive pure and correct educational knowledge. A hedge 
 school, however, in its original sense, was but a temporary 
 establishment, being only adopted until such a schoolhouse 
 could be erected as was in those days deemed sufficient to 
 hold such a number of children as were expected, at all hazards, 
 to attend it. 
 
 The opinion, I know, which has been long entertained of 
 hedge schoolmasters was, and still is, unfavourable ; but the 
 character of these worthy and eccentric persons has been 
 misunderstood, for the stigma attached to their want of know- 
 ledge should have rather been applied to their want of morals,
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 24 1 
 
 because on this latter point only were they indefensible. The 
 fact is, that hedge schoolmasters were a class of men from 
 whom morality was not expected by the peasantry ; for, strange 
 to say, one of their strongest recommendations to the good 
 opinion of the people, as far as their literary talents and 
 qualifications were concerned, was an inordinate love of whisky, 
 and if to this could be added a slight touch of derangement, the 
 character was complete. 
 
 On once asking an Irish peasant why he sent his children 
 to a schoolmaster who was notoriously addicted to spirituous 
 liquors, rather than to a man of sober habits who taught in the 
 same neighbourhood 
 
 " Why do I sind them to Mat Meegan, is it?" he replied; 
 "and do you think, sir," said he, "that I'd sind them to that 
 dry-headed dunce, Mr. Frazher, with his black coat upon him, 
 and his Caroline hat, and him wouldn't taste a glass of poteen 
 wanst in seven years ? Mat, sir, likes it, and taches the boys 
 ten times betther whin he's dhrunk nor whin he's sober ; and 
 you'll never find a good tacher, sir, but's fond of it. As for Mat, 
 when he's half gone, I'd turn him agin the country for deepness 
 in laming ; for it's then he rhymes it out of him, that it would 
 do one good to hear him." 
 
 "So," said I, "you think that a love of drinking poteen is a 
 sign of talent in a schoolmaster." 
 
 " Ay, or in any man else, sir," he replied. " Look at trades- 
 men, and 'tis always the cleverest that you'll find fond of the 
 dhrink ! If you had hard Mat and Frazher the other evening 
 at it what a hare Mat made of him ; but he was jist in proper 
 tune for it, being at the time purty well, I thank you, and did 
 not lave him a leg to stand upon. He took him in Euclid's 
 Ailments and Logicals, and proved in Frazher's teeth that the 
 candlestick before them was the church-steeple, and Frazher 
 himself the parson ; and so sign was on it, the other couldn't 
 disprove it, but had to give in." 
 
 " Mat, then," I observed, " is the most learned man on this 
 walk." 
 
 " Why, thin, I doubt that same, sir," replied he, "for all he's 
 so great in the books ; for, you see, while they were ding dust 
 at it, who comes in but mad Delany, and he attacked Mat, and 
 in less than no time rubbed the consate out of him, as clane as 
 he did out of Frazher." 
 
 " Who is Delany ? " I inquired. 
 
 " He was the makings of a priest, sir, and was in Maynooth 
 a couple of years, but he took in the knowledge so fast that,
 
 242 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 bedad, he got cracked ivid larniri for a dunce, you see, never 
 cracks wid it, in regard of the thickness of the skull. No doubt 
 but he's too many for Mat, and can go far beyand him in the 
 books ; but then, like that, he's still brightest whin he has 
 a sup in his head." 
 
 These are prejudices which the Irish peasantry have long 
 entertained concerning the character of hedge schoolmasters ; 
 but granting them to be unfounded, as they generally are, yet it is 
 an indisputable fact that hedge schoolmasters were as superior 
 in literary knowledge and acquirements to the class of men who 
 are now engaged in the general education of the people as they 
 were beneath them in moral and religious character. The 
 former part of this assertion will, I am aware, appear rather 
 startling to many. But it is true ; and one great cause why the 
 character of society teachers is undervalued, in many instances, 
 by the people proceeds from a conviction on their part that 
 they are, and must be, incapable, from the slender portion of 
 learning they have received, of giving their children a sound 
 and practical education. 
 
 But that we may put this subject in a clearer light, we will 
 give a sketch of the course of instruction which was deemed 
 necessary for a hedge schoolmaster, and let it be contrasted 
 with that which falls to the lot of those engaged in the con- 
 ducting of schools patronised by the Education Societies of the 
 present day. 
 
 When a poor man, about twenty or thirty years ago, under- 
 stood from the schoolmaster who educated his sons that any of 
 them was particularly " 'cute at his larnin'," the ambition of the 
 parent usually directed itself to one of three objects he would 
 either make him a priest, a clerk, or a schoolmaster. The 
 determination once fixed, the boy was set apart from every kind 
 of labour, that he might be at liberty to bestosv his undivided 
 time and talents on the objects set before him. His parents 
 strained every nerve to furnish him with the necessary books, 
 and always took care that his appearance and dress should be 
 more decent than those of any other member of the family. If 
 the Church were in prospect, he was distinguished, after he had 
 been two or three years at his Latin, by the appellation of " the 
 young priest," an epithet to him of the greatest pride and 
 honour ; but if destined only to wield the ferula, his importance 
 in the family and the narrow circle of his friends was by no 
 means so great. If, however, the goal of his future ambition as 
 a schoolmaster was humbler, that of his literary career was 
 considerably extended. He usually remained at the next school
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 2_i3 
 
 in the vicinity until he supposed that he had completely drained 
 the master of all his knowledge. This circumstance was 
 generally discovered in the following manner : As soon as 
 he judged himself a match for his teacher, and possessed 
 sufficient confidence in his own powers, he penned him a formal 
 challenge to meet him in literary contest, either in his own 
 school, before competent witnesses, or at the chapel-green, on 
 the Sabbath day, before the arrival of the priest, or probably 
 after it for the priest himself was generally the moderator and 
 judge upon these occasions. This challenge was generally 
 couched in rhyme, and either sent by the hands of a common 
 friend, or posted upon the chapel door. 
 
 These contests, as the reader perceives, were always public, 
 and were witnessed by the peasantry with intense interest. If 
 the master sustained a defeat, it was not so much attributed to 
 his want of learning as to the overwhelming talent of his 
 opponent ; nor was the success of the pupil generally followed 
 by the expulsion of the master for this was but the first of a 
 series of challenges which the former proposed to undertake, ere 
 he eventually settled himself in the exercise of his profession. 
 
 I remember being present at one of them, and a ludicrous 
 exhibition it was. The parish priest, a red-faced, jocular little 
 man, was president, and his curate, a scholar of six feet two 
 inches in height, and a schoolmaster from the next parish were 
 judges. I will only touch upon two circumstances in their 
 conduct which evinced a close instinctive knowledge of human 
 nature in the combatants. The master would not condescend 
 to argue off his throne a piece of policy to which, in my 
 opinion, he owed his victory (for he won) ; whereas the pupil 
 insisted that he should meet him on equal ground, face to face, 
 in the lower end of the room. It was evident that the latter 
 could not divest himself of his boyish terrors as long as the 
 other sat, as it were, in the plenitude of his former authority, 
 contracting his brows with habitual sternness, thundering out 
 his arguments with a most menacing and stentorian voice, 
 while he thumped his desk with his shut fist, or struck it with 
 his great rule at the end of each argument, in a manner that 
 made the youngster put his hands behind him several times, to 
 be certain that that portion of his dress which is unmentionable 
 was tight upon him. 
 
 If in these encounters the young candidate for the honours of 
 the literary sceptre was not victorious, he again resumed his 
 studies under his old preceptor with renewed vigour and 
 becoming humility ; but if he put the schoolmaster down, his
 
 244 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 next object was to seek out some other teacher whose celebrity 
 was unclouded within his own range. With him he had a fresh 
 encounter, and its result was similar to what I have already 
 related. If victorious, he sought out another and more learned 
 opponent ; and if defeated, he became the pupil of his con- 
 queror going night-about, during his sojourn at the school, 
 with the neighbouring farmers' sons, whom he assisted in their 
 studies as a compensation for his support. He was called, 
 during these peregrinations, the Poor Scholar a character 
 which secured him the esteem and hospitable attention of the 
 peasantry, who never fail in respect to any one characterised by 
 a zeal for learning and knowledge. 
 
 In this manner he proceeded, a literary knight-errant, filled 
 with a chivalrous love of letters which would have done honour 
 to the most learned peripatetic of them all ; enlarging his own 
 powers, and making fresh acquisitions of knowledge as he went 
 along. His contests, his defeats, and his triumphs, of course, 
 were frequent; and his habits of thinking and reasoning must 
 have been considerably improved, his acquaintance with 
 classical and mathematical authors rendered more intimate, and 
 his powers of illustration and comparison more clear and happy. 
 After three or four years spent in this manner, he usually 
 returned to his native place, sent another challenge to the 
 schoolmaster, in the capacity of a candidate for his situation, 
 and, if successful, drove him out of the district and established 
 himself in his situation. The vanquished master sought a new- 
 district, sent a new challenge in his turn to some other teacher, 
 and usually put him to flight in the same manner. The terms 
 of defeat or victory, according to their application, were called 
 sacking and bogging. 
 
 " There was a great argument entirely, sir," said a peasant 
 once when speaking of these contests; "'twas at the chapel 
 on Sunday week, betune young Tom Brady, that was a poor 
 scholar in Munsther, and Mr. Hartigan, the schoolmaster." 
 
 " And who was victorious ? " I inquired. 
 
 " Why, sir, and maybe 'twas young Brady that didn't sack 
 him clane, before the priest and all, and went nigh to bog the 
 priest himself in Greek. His reverence was only two words 
 beyant him; but he sacked, the masther, anyhow, and showed 
 him in the Grammatical and Dixonary where he was wrong." 
 
 "And what is Brady's object in life ?" I asked. " What does 
 he intend to do ?" 
 
 "Intend to do, is it? I'm tould nothing less nor going into 
 Thrinity College in Dublin, and expects to bate them all there,
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 245 
 
 out and out: he's first to make something they call a seizure ; l 
 and, afther making that good, he's to be a counsellor. So, sir, 
 you see what it is to resave good schoolin' and to have the 
 larnin'; but, indeed, it's Brady that's the great head-piece 
 entirely." 
 
 Unquestionably many who received instruction in this 
 manner have distinguished themselves in the Dublin Uni- 
 versity ; and I have no hesitation in saying that young men 
 educated in Irish hedge schools, as they were called, have 
 proved themselves to be better classical scholars and mathe- 
 maticians, generally speaking, than any proportionate number 
 of those educated in our first-rate academies. The Munster 
 masters have long been, and still are, particularly celebrated for 
 making excellent classical and mathematical scholars. 
 
 That a great deal of ludicrous pedantry generally accompanied 
 this knowledge is not at all surprising, when we consider the 
 rank these worthy teachers held in life, and the stretch of infla- 
 tion at which their pride was kept by the profound reverence 
 excited by their learning among the people. It is equally true 
 that each of them had a stock of crambos ready for accidental 
 encounter which would have puzzled Euclid or Sir Isaac Newton 
 himself; but even these trained their minds to habits of acute- 
 ness and investigation. When a schoolmaster of this class had 
 Established himself as a good mathematician, the predomi- 
 nant enjoyment of his heart and life was to write the epithet 
 Philomath after his name ; and this, whatever document he 
 subscribed, was never omitted. If he witnessed a will, it was 
 Timothy Fagan, Philomath; if he put his name to a promissory 
 note, it was Tim. Fagan, Philomath ; if he addressed a love- 
 letter to his sweetheart, it was still Timothy Fagan or what- 
 ever the name might be Philomath ; and this was always 
 written in legible and distinct copyhand, sufficiently large to 
 attract the observation of the reader. 
 
 It was also usual for a man who had been a pre-eminent and 
 extraordinary scholar to have the epithet GREAT prefixed to his 
 name. I remember one of this description, who was called the 
 Great O'Brien, par excellence. In the latter years of his life 
 he gave up teaching, and led a circulating life, going round from 
 school to school, and remaining a week or a month alternately 
 among his brethren. His visits were considered an honour, 
 and raised considerably the literary character of those with 
 whom he resided ; for he spoke of dunces with the most 
 
 1 Sizar.
 
 246 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 dignified contempt, and the general impression was that he 
 would scorn even to avail himself of their hospitality. Like 
 most of his brethren, he could not live without the poteen; and 
 his custom was to drink a pint of it in its native purity before 
 he entered into any literary contest, or made any display of his 
 learning at wakes or other Irish festivities ; and most certainly, 
 however blamable the practice, and injurious to health and 
 morals, it threw out his talents and his powers in a most 
 surprising manner. 
 
 It was highly amusing to observe the peculiarity which the 
 consciousness of superior knowledge impressed upon the con- 
 versation and personal appearance of this decaying race. 
 Whatever might have been the original conformation of their 
 physical structure, it was sure, by the force of acquired habit, to 
 transform itself into a stiff, erect, consequential, and unbending 
 manner, ludicrously characteristic of an inflated sense of their 
 extraordinary knowledge, and a proud and commiserating con- 
 tempt of the dark ignorance by which, in despite of their own 
 light, they were surrounded. Their conversation, like their 
 own crambos^ was dark and difficult to be understood; their 
 words truly sesquipedalian ; their voice loud and commanding 
 in its tones; their deportment grave and dictatorial, but com- 
 pletely indescribable, and certainly original to the last degree, 
 in those instances where the ready blundering but genuine 
 humour of their country maintained an unyielding rivalry in 
 their disposition against the natural solemnity which was con- 
 sidered necessary to keep up the due dignity of their character. 
 
 In many of these persons, where the original humour and 
 gaiety of the disposition were known, all efforts at the grave and 
 dignified were complete failures, and these were enjoyed by the 
 peasantry and their own pupils nearly with the sensations which 
 the enactment of Hamlet by Liston would necessarily produce. 
 At all events their education, allowing for the usual exceptions, 
 was by no means superficial ; and the reader has already 
 received a sketch of the trials which they had to undergo before 
 they considered themselves qualified to enter upon the duties of 
 their calling. Their life was, in fact, a state of literary warfare ; 
 and they felt that a mere elementary knowledge of their business 
 would have been insufficient to carry them, with suitable credit, 
 through the attacks to which they were exposed from travelling 
 teachers, whose mode of establishing themselves in schools was, 
 as I said, by driving away the less qualified and usurping their 
 places. This, according to the law of opinion and the custom 
 which prevailed, was very easily effected, for the peasantry
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 247 
 
 uniformly encouraged those whom they supposed to be the most 
 competent; as to moral or religious instruction, neither was 
 expected from them, so that the indifference of the moral 
 character was no bar to their success. 
 
 The village of Findramore was situated at the foot of a long 
 green hill, the outline of which formed a low arch as it rose to 
 the eye against the horizon. This hill was studded with clumps 
 of beeches, and sometimes enclosed as a meadow. In the 
 month of July, when the grass on it was long, many an hour 
 have I spent in solitary enjoyment, watching the wavy motion 
 produced upon its pliant surface by the sunny winds, or the 
 flight of the cloud shadows, like gigantic phantoms, as they 
 swept rapidly over it, whilst the murmur of the rocking trees 
 and the glancing of their bright leaves in the sun produced 
 a heartfelt pleasure, the very memory of which rises in my 
 imagination like some fading recollection of a brighter world. 
 
 At the foot of this hill ran a clear, deep-banked river, bounded 
 on one side by a slip of rich, level meadow, and on the other by 
 a kind of common for the village geese, whose white feathers, 
 during the summer season, lay scattered over its green surface. 
 It was also the playground for the boys of the village school ; 
 for there ran that part of the river which, with very correct 
 judgment, the urchins had selected as their bathing-place. A 
 little slope or watering-ground in the bank brought them to the 
 edge of the stream, where the bottom fell away into the fearful 
 depths of the whirlpool under the hanging oak on the other 
 bank. Well do I remember the first time I ventured to swim 
 across it, and even yet do I see, in imagination, the two bunches 
 of water flaggons on which the inexperienced swimmers trusted 
 themselves in the water. 
 
 About two hundred yards above this, the boreen^- which led 
 from the village to the main road crossed the river by one of 
 those old narrow bridges whose arches rise like round ditches 
 across the road an almost impassable barrier to horse and car. 
 On passing the bridge in a northern direction you found a range 
 of low thatched houses on each side of the road ; and if one 
 o'clock, the hour of dinner, drew near, you might observe 
 columns of blue smoke curling up from a row of chimneys, some 
 made of wicker creels plastered over with a rich coat of mud ; 
 
 1 A little road.
 
 2 4 S THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 some of old, narrow, bottomless tubs ; and others, with a greater 
 appearance of taste, ornamented with thick circular ropes of 
 straw, sewed together like bees' skeps with the peel of a brier ; 
 and many having nothing but the open vent above. But the 
 smoke by no means escaped by its legitimate aperture, for you 
 might observe little clouds of it bursting out of the doors and 
 windows ; the panes of the latter, being mostly stopped at other 
 times with old hats and rags, were now left entirely open for the 
 purpose of giving it a free escape. 
 
 Before the doors, on right and left, was a series of dung-hills, 
 each with its concomitant sink of green, rotten water; and if it 
 happened that a stout-looking woman, with watery eyes and a 
 yellow cap hung loosely upon her matted locks, came, with a 
 chubby urchin on one arm and a pot of dirty water in her hand, 
 its unceremonious ejection into the aforesaid sink would be apt 
 to send you up the village with your finger and thumb (for what 
 purpose you would yourself perfectly understand) closely, but 
 not knowingly, applied to your nostrils. But, independently of 
 this, you would be apt to have other reasons for giving your 
 horse, whose heels are by this time surrounded by a dozen of 
 barking curs, and the same number of shouting urchins, a pretty 
 sharp touch of the spurs, as well as for complaining bitterly of the 
 odour of the atmosphere. It is no landscape without figures; 
 and you might notice, if you are, as I suppose you to be, a man 
 of observation, in every sink as you pass along, a "slip of a pig," 
 stretched in the middle of the mud, the very beau ideal oi luxury, 
 giving occasionally a long, luxuriant grunt, highly expressive of 
 his enjoyment ; or perhaps an old farrower, lying in indolent 
 repose, with half-a-dozen young ones jostling each other for 
 their draught, and punching her belly with their little snouts, 
 reckless of the fumes they are creating ; whilst the loud crow of 
 the cock, as he confidently flaps his wings on his own dung-hill, 
 gives the warning note for the hour of dinner. 
 
 As you advance you will also perceive several faces thrust 
 out of the doors, and rather than miss a sight of you, a grotesque 
 visage peeping by a short cut through the paneless windows 
 or a tattered female flying to snatch up her urchin that has 
 been tumbling itself, heels up, in the dust of the road, lest "the 
 gintleman's horse might ride over it;" and if you happen to 
 look behind you may observe a shaggy -headed youth in 
 tattered frieze, with one hand thrust indolently in his breast, 
 standing at the door in conversation with the inmates, a broad 
 grin of sarcastic ridicule on his face, in the act of breaking a 
 joke or two upon yoursel. or your horse : or perhaps your jaw
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 249 
 
 may be saluted with a lump of clay, just hard enough not to fall 
 asunder as it flies., cast by some ragged gorsoon from behind 
 a hedge, who squats himself in a ridge of corn to avoid 
 detection. 
 
 Seated upon a hob at the door, you may observe a toilworn 
 man, without coat or waistcoat ; his red, muscular, sun-burnt 
 shoulder peering through the remnant of a shirt, mending his 
 shoes with a piece of twisted flax, called a lingel or perhaps 
 sewing two footless stockings (or martyeens) to his coat, as a 
 substitute for sleeves. 
 
 In the gardens, which are usually fringed with nettles, you 
 will see a solitary labourer, working with that carelessness and 
 apathy that characterise an Irishman when he labours for 
 htmse/f leaning upon his spade to look after you, and glad 
 of any excuse to be idle. 
 
 The houses, however, are not all such as I have described far 
 from it. You see, here and there, between the more humble 
 cabins, a stout, comfortable-looking farm-house, with ornamental 
 thatching and well-glazed windows ; adjoining to which is a 
 hagyard, with five or six large stacks of corn, well trimmed and 
 roped, and a fine yellow, weather-beaten old hayrick, half cut 
 not taking into account twelve or thirteen circular strata of 
 stones that mark out the foundation on which others had been 
 raised. Neither is the rich smell of oaten or wheaten bread, 
 which the good wife is baking on the griddle, unpleasant to your 
 nostrils ; nor would the bubbling of a large pot, in which you 
 might see, should you chance to enter, a prodigious square of 
 fat, yellow, and almost transparent bacon tumbling about, be 
 an unpleasant object ; truly, as it hangs over a large fire, with 
 well-swept hearthstone, it is in good keeping with the white settle 
 and chairs, and the dresser with noggins, wooden trenchers, 
 and pewter dishes perfectly clean, and as well polished as a 
 French courtier. 
 
 As you leave the village you have, to the left, a view of the 
 hill which I have already described, and to the right a level 
 expanse of fertile country, bounded by a good view of respect- 
 able mountains, peering decently into the sky ; and in a line 
 that forms an acute angle from the point of the road where you 
 ride is a delightful valley, in the bottom of which shines a 
 pretty lake ; and a little beyond, on the slope of a green hill, 
 rises a splendid house, surrounded by a park, well wooded and 
 stocked with deer. You have now topped the little hill above 
 the village, and a straight line of level road, a mile long, goes 
 forward to a country town which lies immediately behind that
 
 2So THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 white church, with its spire cutting into the sky, before you. 
 You descend on the other side, and, having advanced a few 
 perches, look to the left, where you see a long thatched chapel, 
 only distinguished from a dwelling-house by its want of 
 chimneys, and a small stone cross that stands on the top of the 
 eastern gable ; behind it is a graveyard, and beside it a snug 
 public-house, well whitewashed ; then, to the right, you observe 
 a door apparently in the side of a clay bank, which rises con- 
 siderably above the pavement of the road. What ! you ask 
 yourself, can this be a human habitation ? but ere you have 
 time to answer the question, a confused buzz of voices from 
 within reaches your ear, and the appearance of a little 
 " gorsoon," with a red, close-cropped head and Milesian face, 
 having in his hand a short white stick, or the thigh bone of a 
 horse, which you at once recognise as "the pass" of a village 
 school, gives you the full information. He has an ink-horn, 
 covered with leather, dangling at the button-hole (for he has 
 long since played away the buttons) of his frieze jacket his 
 mouth is circumscribed with a streak of ink his pen is stuck 
 knowingly behind his ear his shins are dotted over with 
 blisters, black, red, and blue on each heel a kibe his " leather 
 crackers," videlicet, breeches, shrunk up upon him, and only 
 reaching as far down as the caps of his knees. Having spied 
 you, he places his hand over his brows, to throw back the 
 dazzling light of the sun, and peers at you from under it, till he 
 breaks out into a laugh, exclaiming, half to himself, and half to 
 you 
 
 " You a gintleman ! no ; nor one of your breed never was, 
 you procthorin' thief, you ! " 
 
 You are now immediately opposite the door of the seminary, 
 when half-a-dozen of those seated next it notice you. 
 
 " Oh, sir, here's a gintleman on a horse ! masther, sir, here's 
 a gintleman on a horse, wid boots and spurs on him, that's 
 looking in at us." 
 
 " Silence 1 " exclaims the master ; " back from the door, 
 boys, rehearse every one of you rehearse, I say, you Boeotians, 
 till the gintleman goes past ! " 
 
 " I want to go out, if you plase, sir." 
 
 " No, you don't, Phelim." 
 
 " I do, indeed, sir." 
 
 " What 1 is it afther conthradictin' me you'd be ? don't you 
 see the porter's out, and you can't go." 
 
 " Well, 'tis Mat Meehan has it, sir, and he's out this half-hour, 
 sir. I can't stay in, sir iphfff iphfff 1 "
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL 251 
 
 " You want to be idling your time looking at the gintleman, 
 Phelim." 
 
 " No, indeed, sir iphfff ! " 
 
 " Phelim, I know you of ould go to your sate 1 tell you, 
 Phelim, you were born for the encouragement of the hemp 
 manufacture, and you'll die promoting it." 
 
 In the meantime the master puts his head out of the door, his 
 body stooped to a " half bend " a phrase, and the exact curve 
 which it forms, I leave for the present to your own sagacity 
 and surveys you until you pass. That is an Irish hedge school, 
 and the personage who follows you with his eye a hedge school- 
 master. His name is Matthew Kavanagh ; and as you seem to 
 consider his literary establishment rather a curiosity in its kind, 
 I will, if you be disposed to hear it, give you the history of him 
 and his establishment, beginning, in the first place, with 
 
 THE ABDUCTION OF MAT KAVANAGH, 
 The Hedge Schoolmaster. 
 
 For about three years before the period of which I write, the 
 village of Findramore and the parish in which it lay were 
 without a teacher. Mat's predecessor was a James Garraghty, 
 a lame young man, the son of a widow, whose husband lost his 
 life in attempting to extinguish a fire that broke out in the 
 dwelling-house of Squire Johnston, a neighbouring magistrate. 
 The son was a boy at the time of this disaster, and the Squire, 
 as some compensation for the loss of his father's life in his 
 service, had him educated at his own expense ; that is to say, 
 he gave the master who taught in the village orders to educate 
 him gratuitously, on the condition of being horsewhipped out 
 of the parish if he refused. As soon as he considered himself 
 qualified to teach, he opened a school in the village on his 
 own account, where he taught until his death, which happened 
 in less than a year after the commencement of his little 
 seminary. The children usually assembled in his mother's 
 cabin ; but as she did not long survive the son, this, which 
 was at best a very miserable residence, soon tottered to the 
 ground. The roof and thatch were burned for firing, the mud 
 gables fell in, and were overgrown with grass, nettles, and 
 docks ; and nothing remained but a foot or two of the little 
 clay side-walls, which presented, when associated with the 
 calamitous fate of their inoffensive inmates, rather a touching 
 image of ruin upon a small scale.
 
 252 THE HEDGE SCHOOL, 
 
 Garraghty had been attentive to his little pupils, and his 
 instructions were sufficient to give them a relish for education 
 a circumstance which did not escape the observation of their 
 parents, who duly appreciated it. His death, however, deprived 
 them of this advantage ; and as schoolmasters, under the old 
 system, were always at a premium, it so happened that for 
 three years afterwards none of that class presented himself to 
 their acceptance. Many a trial had been made, and many a 
 sly offer held out, as a lure to the neighbouring teachers, but 
 they did not take ; for although the country was densely 
 inhabited, yet it was remarked that no schoolmaster ever 
 " thruv" in the neighbourhood of Findramore. The place, in 
 fact, had got a bad name. Garraghty died, it was thought, ot 
 poverty a disease to which the Findramore schoolmasters had 
 been always known to be subject. His predecessor, too, was 
 lianged, along with two others, for burning the house of an 
 "Aagint." 
 
 Then the Findramore boys were not easily dealt with, having 
 an ugly habit of involving their unlucky teachers in those 
 quarrels which they kept up with the Ballyscanlan boys a 
 fighting clan that lived at the foot of the mountains above 
 them. These two factions, when they met, whether at fair or 
 market, wake or wedding, could never part without carrying 
 home on each side a dozen or two of bloody cockscombs. For 
 these reasons the parish of Aughindrum had for a few years 
 been afflicted with an extraordinary dearth of knowledge ; the 
 only literary establishment which flourished in it being a 
 parochial institution, which, however excellent in design, yet, 
 like too many establishments of the same nature, degenerated 
 into a source of knowledge, morals, and education exceedingly 
 dry and unproductive to every person except the master, who 
 was enabled by his honest industry to make a provision for his 
 family absolutely surprising, when we consider the moderate 
 nature of his ostensible income. It was, in fact, like a well 
 dried up, to which scarcely any one ever thinks of going for 
 water. 
 
 Such a state of things, however, could not last long. The 
 youth of Findramore were parched for want of the dew of 
 knowledge ; and their parents and grown brethren met one 
 Saturday evening in Barny Brady's shebeen-house to take into 
 consideration the best means for procuring a resident school- 
 master for the village and neighbourhood. It was a difficult 
 point, and required great dexterity of management to enable 
 them to devise any effectual remedy for the evil which they felt.
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 253 
 
 There were present at this council, Tim Dolan, the senior ol 
 the village, and his three sons, Jem Coogan, Brian Murphy, 
 Paddy Delany, Owen Roe O'Neil, Jack Traynor, and Andy 
 Connell, with five or six others, whom it is not necessary to 
 enumerate. 
 
 " Bring us in a quart, Barny," said Dolan to Brady, who on 
 this occasion we must designate as the host, " and let it be rale 
 hath en." 
 
 " What do you mane, Tim?" replied the host. 
 
 "I mane," continued Dolan, "stuff that was never christened, 
 man alive." 
 
 " Thin I'll bring you the same that Father Maguire got last 
 night on his way home, afther anointin' ould Katty Duffy," 
 replied Brady. " I'm sure, whatever I might be afther givin' 
 to strangers, Tim, I'd be long sorry to give yees anything but 
 the right sort." 
 
 " That's a gay man, Barny," said Traynor ; " but off wid you 
 like shot, an' let us get it under our tooth first, an' then we'll 
 tell you more about it. A big rogue is the same Barny," he 
 added, after Brady had gone to bring in the poteen, " an' never 
 sells a droph that's not one whisky and five wathers." 
 
 " But he couldn't expose it on you, Jack," observed Connell ; 
 " you're too ould a hand about the pot for that. Warn't you in 
 the mountains last week ?" 
 
 "Ay ; but the curse of Cromwell upon the thief of a gauger, 
 Simpson himself and a pack o' redcoats surrounded us when 
 we war beginnin' to double, and the purtiest runnirf that 
 ever you seen was lost ; for, you see, before you could cross 
 yourself, we had the bottoms knocked clane out of the vessels ; 
 so that the villains didn't get a hole in our coats, as they 
 thought they would." 
 
 "I tell you," observed O'Neil, "there's a bad pill somewhere 
 about us." 
 
 "Ay is there, Owen," replied Traynor; "and what is more, 
 I don't think he's a hundhred miles from the place where we're 
 sittin' in." 
 
 " Faith, maybe so, Jack," returned the other. 
 
 " I'd never give in to that," said Murphy. "'Tis Barny Brady 
 that would never turn informer the same thing isn't in him, 
 nor in any of his breed ; there's not a man in the parish I'd 
 thrust sooner." 
 
 " I'd jist thrust him," replied Traynor, "as far as I could 
 throw a cow by the tail. Arrah, what's the rason that the 
 gauger never looks next or near his place, an' it's well known 
 
 18
 
 254 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 that he sells poteen widout a licence, though he goes past his 
 door wanst a week ? " 
 
 "What the h is keepin' him at all?" inquired one of 
 
 Dolan's sons. 
 
 " Look at him," said Traynor, " comin' in out of the garden ; 
 now much afeared he is ! keepin' the whisky in a phatie ridge 
 an' I'd kiss the book that he brought that bottle out in his 
 pocket, instead of diggin' it up out o' the garden." 
 
 Whatever Brady's usual habits of christening his poteen 
 might have been, that which he now placed before them was 
 good. He laid the bottle on a little deal table with cross legs, 
 and along with it a small drinking glass fixed in a bit of flat 
 circular wood, as a substitute for the original bottom, which had 
 been broken. They now entered upon the point in question 
 without further delay. 
 
 " Come, Tim," said Coogan, " you're the oldest man, and 
 must spake first." 
 
 "Throth, man," replied Dolan, "beggin" your pardon, I'll 
 dhrink first shud-urth, your sowl ; success, boys glory to 
 ourselves, and confusion to the Scanlan boys, any way." 
 
 "And maybe," observed Connell, "'tis we that didn't lick 
 them well in the last fair they're not able to meet the Find- 
 ramore birds even on their own walk." 
 
 " Well, boys," said Delany, " about the masther ? Our 
 childhre will grow up like bullockeens, widout knowing a 
 hap'orth ; and laming, you see, is a burdyen that's asy 
 carried." 
 
 "Ay," observed O'Neil, "as Solvester Maguire, the poet, 
 used to say 
 
 " ' Labour for larnin' before you grow ould, 
 For laming is better nor riches nor gould; 
 Riches an' gould they may vanquish away, 
 But larnin' alone it will never decay.'" 
 
 " Success, Owen ! Why, you might put down the pot and 
 warm an air to it," said Murphy. 
 
 " Well, boys, are we all safe ? " asked Traynor. 
 
 "Safe!" said old Dolan. "Arrah, what are you talkin' 
 about ? Sure, 'tisn't of that same spalpeen of a gauger that 
 we'd be afraid ?" 
 
 During this observation, young Dolan pressed Traynor"s 
 foot under the table, and they both went out for about five 
 minutes.
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 255 
 
 " Father," said the son, when he and Traynor re-entered the 
 room, " you're a-wanting home." 
 
 " Who wants me, Larry, avick ? " says the father. 
 
 The son immediately whispered him for a moment, when 
 the old man instantly rose, got his hat, and, after drinking 
 another bumper of the poteen, departed. 
 
 "'Twas hardly worth while," said Delany ; "the ould fellow's 
 mettle to the backbone, an' would never show the garran-bane 
 at any rate, even if he knew all about it." 
 
 " Bad end to the syllable I'd let the same ould cock hear," 
 said the son ; " the divil thrust any man that didn't switch the 
 primer^ for it, though he is my father ; but now, boys, that the 
 coast's clear and all safe where will we get a schoolmaster ? 
 Mat Kavanagh won't budge from the Scanlan boys, even if we 
 war to put our hands undher his feet ; and small blame to him, 
 when he heads them sure, you would not expect him to be a 
 chraitor to his own ? " 
 
 " Faith, the gorsoons is in a bad state," said Murphy ; "but, 
 boys, where will we get a man that's up f Why, I know 'tis 
 betther to have anybody nor be widout one ; but we might kill 
 two birds wid one stone if we could get a masther that would 
 carry 'Articles,' 2 an' swear in the boys, from time to time an', 
 between ourselves, if there's any danger of the hemp, we may as 
 well lay it upon strange shoulders." 
 
 "Ay, but since Corrigan swung for the Aagint," replied 
 Delany, "they're a little modest in havin' act or part wid us; 
 but the best plan is to get an advartisment wrote out, an' have 
 it posted on the chapel door." 
 
 This hint was debated with much earnestness ; but as they 
 were really anxious to have a master in the first place, for the 
 simple purpose of educating their children ; and in the next, for 
 filling the situation of director and regulator of their -illegal 
 Ribbon meetings they determined on penning an advertise- 
 ment, according to the suggestion of Delany. After drinking 
 another bottle, and amusing themselves with some further chat, 
 one of the Dolans undertook to draw up the advertisement, 
 which ran as follows : 
 
 "ADVAR TAA1SMENT. 
 " Notes to Schoolmasthers, and to all others whom it may consarn. 
 
 " WANTED, 
 " For the nabourhood and vircinity of the Townland of 
 
 1 Take an oath. a A copy of the Whiteboy oath and regulations.
 
 256 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 Findramore, in the Parish of Aughindrum, in the Barony of 
 Lisnamoghry, County of Sligo, Province of Connaught, Ireland. 
 
 "To SCHOOLMASTERS. 
 
 "Take Notes That any Schoolmaster who understands 
 Spellin" gramatically Readin' and Writin', in the raal way, 
 according to the Dixonary Arithmatick that is to say, the five 
 common rules, namely, simple addition, subtraction, multipli- 
 cation, and division and addition, subtraction, multiplication, 
 and division of Dives's denominations. Also reduction up and 
 down cross multiplication of coin the Rule of Three direck 
 the Rule of Three in verse the double Rule of Three 
 Frackshins taught according to the vulgar and decimatin' 
 method ; and must be well practised to tache the Findramore 
 boys how to manage the Scuffle. 
 
 " N.B. He must be well grounded in that. Practis, Discount, 
 and Rebatiti. N.B. Must be well grounded in that also. 
 
 " Tret and Tare Fellowship Allegation Barther Rates 
 per Scent Intherest Exchange Prophet in Loss the Square 
 Root the Kibe Root Hippothenuse Arithmatical and Gom- 
 metrical Purgation Compound Intherest Loggerheadism 
 Questions for Exercise, and the Conendix to Algibbra. He must 
 also know Jommithry accordin' to Grunther's scale the Castiga- 
 tion of the Klipsticks Surveying, and the use of the Jacob-staff. 
 
 " N.B. Would get a good dale of Surveyin' to do in the 
 vircinity of Findramore, particularly in Con-acre time. If he 
 knew the use of the globe, it would be an accusation. He must 
 also understand the Three Sets of Book-keeping, by single and 
 double entry, particularly Loftus and Company of Paris, their 
 Account of Cash and Company. And, above all things, he must 
 know how to tache the Sarviri of Mass in Latin, and be able to 
 read Doctor Gallaher's Irish Sarmints, and explain Kolumkill's 
 and Pastorini's Prophecies. 
 
 " N.B. If he understands Cudgel-fencin\ it would be an 
 accusation also but mustn't tache us wid a staff that bends in 
 the middle, bekase it breaks one's head across the guard. Any 
 schoolmaster capacious and collified to instruct in the above- 
 mintioned branches would get a good school in the townland 
 of Findramore and its vircinity, be well fed, an' get the hoith o* 
 good livin' among the farmers, an' would be ped 
 
 "For Book-keepin', the three sets, a ginny and a half, 
 
 " For Gommethry, etc., half-a-ginny a quarther. 
 
 "Arithmatic, aight and three-hapuns. 
 
 " Readin', Writin', etc., six Hogs.
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL 257 
 
 " Given under our /lands, this yznd of June, 18004. 
 'LARRY DOLAN. 
 ' DICK DOLAN, his x mark. 
 'JEM COOGAN, his x mark. 
 'BRINE MURPHLY. 
 ' PADDY DELANY, his x mark. 
 'JACK TRAYNOR. 
 'ANDY CONNELL. 
 ' OWEN ROE O'NEIL, his x mark. 
 
 " N.B.-~.5y making airly application to any of the undher- 
 minlioned he will hear of further particklers; and if they find 
 that he will shoot them, he may expect the best o' thratement, 
 an' be well fed among the farmers. 
 
 " N.B. Would get also a good night-school among the 
 vircinity." 
 
 Having penned the above advertisement, it was carefully 
 posted early the next morning on the chapel doors, with an 
 expectation on the part of the patrons that it would not be 
 wholly fruitless. The next week, however, passed without an 
 application the second also and the third produced the same 
 result ; nor was there the slightest prospect of a schoolmaster 
 being blown by any wind to the lovers of learning at Findra- 
 more. In the meantime the Ballyscanlan boys took care to 
 keep up the ill-natured prejudice which had been circulated 
 concerning the fatality that uniformly attended such school- 
 masters as settled there ; and when this came to the ears 
 of the Findramore folk, it was once more resolved that the 
 advertisement should be again put up, with a clause containing 
 an explanation on that point. The clause ran as follows : 
 
 " N.B. The two last masters that was hanged out of Findra- 
 more that is, Mickey Corrigan, who was hanged for killing the 
 Aagint, and Jem Garraghty, that died of a declension Jem 
 died in quensequence of ill health, and Mickey was hanged 
 contrary to his own wishes ; so that it wasn't either of their 
 faults. As witness our hands, this 27th of July. 
 
 " DICK DOLAN, his x mark." 
 
 This explanation, however, was as fruitless as the original 
 advertisement ; and week after week passed over without an 
 offer from a single candidate. The "vircinity" of Findramore 
 and its "nabourhood" seemed devoted to ignorance; and 
 nothing remained except another effort at procuring a master 
 by some more ingenious contrivance.
 
 25& THE HEDGE SCHOOL, 
 
 Debate after debate was consequently held in Barny Brady's ; 
 and, until a fresh suggestion was made by Delany, the prospect 
 seemed as bad as ever. Delany at length fell upon a new plan ; 
 and it must be confessed that it was marked in a peculiar 
 manner by a spirit of originality and enterprise it being 
 nothing less than a proposal to carry off, by force or stratagem, 
 Mat Kavanagh, who was at that time fixed in the throne of 
 literature among the Ballyscanlan boys, quite unconscious of 
 the honourable translation to the neighbourhood of Findramore 
 which was intended for him. The project, when broached, was 
 certainly a startling one, and drove most of them to a pause 
 before they were sufficiently collected to give an opinion on its 
 merits. 
 
 " Nothin', boys, is asier," said Delany. " There's to be a 
 patthern in Ballymagowan on next Sathurday an' that's jist 
 half way betune ourselves and the Scanlan boys. Let us 
 musther an' go there, anyhow. We can keep an eye on Mat 
 widout much trouble, an', when opportunity sarves, nick him at 
 wanst, an' off wid him clane." 
 
 " But," said Traynor, " what would we do wid him when he'd 
 be here ? Wouldn't he cut art run the first opportunity ?" 
 
 " How can he, ye omadhawn, if we put a manvvill in our 
 pocket, an' sware him ? But we'll butther him up when he's 
 among us ; or, be me sowks, if it goes to that, force him either 
 to settle wid ourselves, or make himself scarce in the counthry 
 entirely." 
 
 "Divil a much force it'll take to keep him, I'm thinkin'," 
 observed Murphy. " He'll have three times a betther school 
 here ; and if he was wanst settled, I'll engage he would take to 
 it kindly." 
 
 "See here, boys," says Dick Dolan, in a whisper, " if that 
 bloody villain, Brady, isn't afther standin' this quarther of an 
 hour, strivin' to hear what we're about ; but it's well we didn't 
 bring up anything consarniu' the other business. Didn't I tell 
 yees the desate was in 'im ? Look at his shadow on the wall 
 fbrninst us." 
 
 "Hould yer tongues, boys," said Traynor; "jist keep never 
 mindin', and, be my sowks, I'll make him sup sorrow for that 
 thrick." 
 
 " You had betther neither make nor meddle with him," 
 observed Delany ; "jist put him out o' that but don't raise 
 yer hand to him, or he'll sarve you as he did Jim Flanagan 
 put ye three or four months in the Stone Jtfg" 
 
 Traynor, however, had gone out while he was speaking, and
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL 259 
 
 in a few minutes dragged in Brady, whom he caught in the 
 very act of eavesdropping. 
 
 " Jist come in, Brady," said Traynor, as he dragged him 
 along "walk in, man alive; sure, and sich an honest man as 
 you are needn't be afeard of lookin' his friend in the face ! 
 ho ! an' by sowl, is it a spy we've got? an', I suppose, would 
 be an informer too, if he had heard anything to tell ! " 
 
 "What's the manin' of this, boys?" exclaimed the others, 
 feigning ignorance " let the honest man go, Traynor. What 
 do ye hawl him that-a-way for, ye gallis pet ?" 
 
 " Honest 1" replied Traynor "how very honest he is, the 
 desavin' villain to be standin' at the windy there, wantin' to 
 overhear the little harmless talk we had." 
 
 " Come, Traynor," said Brady, seizing him in his turn by the 
 neck, " take your hands off of me, or, bad fate to me, but I'll 
 lave ye a mark." 
 
 Traynor, in his turn, had his hand twisted in Brady's cravat, 
 which he drew tightly about his neck, until the other got nearly 
 black in the face. 
 
 "Let me go, you villain!" exclaimed Brady, "or by this 
 blessed night that's in it, it'll be worse for you." 
 
 "Villain! is it?" replied Traynor, making a blow at him, 
 whilst Brady snatched at a penknife which one of the others 
 had placed on the table, after picking the tobacco out of his 
 pipe intending either to stab Traynor or to cut the knot of the 
 cravat by which he was held. The others, however, interfered, 
 and prevented further mischief. 
 
 " Brady," said Traynor, "you'll rue this night, if ever a man 
 did, you treacherous, informin' villain. What an honest spy we 
 have among us ! and a short coorse to you ! " 
 
 " Oh, hould yer tongue, Traynor I " replied Brady ; " I b'lieve 
 it's best known who is both the spy and the informer. The 
 divil a pint of poteen ever you'll run in this parish until you 
 clear yourself of bringing the gauger on the Traceys, bekase 
 they tuck Mick M'Kew in preference to yourself to run it for 
 them." 
 
 Traynor made another attempt to strike him, but was pre- 
 vented. The rest now interfered ; and, in the course of an 
 hour or so, an adjustment took place. 
 
 Brady took up the tongs, and swore "by that blessed iron" 
 that he neither heard nor intended to hear anything they said, 
 and this exculpation was followed by a fresh bottle at his own 
 expense. 
 
 " You omadhawn," said he to Traynor, " I was on'y puttin'
 
 260 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 up a dozen o' bottles into the tatch of the house, when you 
 thought I was listenin' ; " and, as a proof of the truth of this, he 
 brought them out and showed them some bottles of poteen, 
 neatly covered up under the thatch. 
 
 Before their separation they finally planned the abduction of 
 Kavanagh from the Patron, on the Saturday following, and, 
 after drinking another round, went home to their respective 
 dwellings. 
 
 In this speculation, however, they experienced a fresh dis- 
 appointment; for, ere Saturday arrived, whether in consequence 
 of secret intimation of their intention from Brady or some other 
 friend, or in compliance with the offer of a better situation, the 
 fact was that Mat Kavanagh had removed to another school, 
 distant about eighteen miles from Findramore. But they were 
 not to be outdone. A new plan was laid, and in the course of 
 the next week a dozen of the most enterprising" and intrepid of 
 the " boys," mounted each upon a good horse, went to Mat's 
 new residence for the express purpose of securing him. 
 
 Perhaps our readers may scarcely believe that a love of 
 learning was so strong among the inhabitants of Findramore as 
 to occasion their taking such remarkable steps for establishing 
 a schoolmaster among them ; but the country was densely 
 inhabited, the rising population exceedingly numerous, and the 
 outcry for a schoolmaster amongst the parents of the children 
 loud and importunate. Besides this, the illegal principles of 
 Whiteboyism were as deeply rooted in that neighbourhood as 
 in others ; and the young men stood in need of some person 
 who might regulate their proceedings, keep their registries, 
 preside at and appoint their meetings, and organise with 
 sufficient skill and precision, not only the vast numbers who 
 had been already enrolled as members, but who were putting 
 forward their claims day after day to be admitted as such. 
 
 God knows it is no wonder that Ireland should be as she is, 
 and as she long has been, when we consider the fact that those 
 who conducted the education of her peasantry were the most 
 active instruments in disseminating among the rising generation 
 such pernicious principles as those which characterise this 
 system, so deeply rooted among the people men whose moral 
 characters were, with few exceptions, execrable and nine- 
 tenths of whom held situations of authority in these diabolical 
 associations. 
 
 The fact, therefore, was that a double motive stimulated the 
 inhabitants of Findramore in their efforts to procure a master. 
 The old and middle-aged heads of families were actuated by a
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 261 
 
 simple wish, inseparable from Irishmen, to have their children 
 educated ; and the young men, not only by a determination to 
 have a properly qualified person to preside at their nightly 
 orgies, but an inclination to improve themselves in reading, 
 writing, and arithmetic. The circumstance I am now relating 
 is one which actually took place ; and any man acquainted 
 with the remote parts of Ireland may have often seen bloody 
 and obstinate quarrels among the peasantry in vindicating a 
 priority of claim to the local residence of a schoolmaster among 
 them. I could, within my own experience, relate two or three 
 instances of this nature. 
 
 It was one Saturday night in the latter end of the month of 
 May that a dozen Findramore "boys," as they were called, set 
 out upon this most singular of all literary speculations, resolved, 
 at whatever risk, to secure the person and effect the permanent 
 bodily presence among them of the redoubtable Mat Kavanagh. 
 Each man was mounted on a horse, and one of them brought a 
 spare steed for the accommodation of the schoolmaster. The 
 caparison of this horse was somewhat remarkable. It consisted 
 of a wooden straddle, such as is used by the peasantry for 
 carrying wicker paniers or creels, which are hung upon two 
 wooden pins that stand up out of its sides. Under it was a 
 straw mat, to prevent the horse's back from being stripped by 
 the straddle. On one side of this hung a large cretl, and on 
 the other a strong sack, tied round a stone of sufficient weight 
 to balance the empty creel. The night was warm and clear, the 
 moon and stars all threw their mellow light from a serene, 
 unclouded sky, and the repose of nature in the short nights of 
 this delightful season resembles that of a young virgin of 
 sixteen still, light, and glowing. Their way, for the most part 
 of their journey, lay through a solitary mountain-road ; and, as 
 they did not undertake the enterprise without a good stock 
 of poteen, their light-hearted songs and choruses awoke the 
 echoes that slept in the mountain glens as they went along. 
 The adventure, it is true, had as much of frolic as of seriousness 
 in it ; and merely as the means of a day's fun for the boys, it 
 was the more eagerly entered into. 
 
 It was about midnight when they left home, and as they did 
 not wish to arrive at the village to which they were bound until 
 the morning should be rather advanced, the journey was as 
 slowly performed as possible. Every remarkable object on the 
 way was noticed, and its history, if any particular association 
 was connected with it, minutely detailed, whenever it happened 
 to be known. When the sun rose, many beautiful green spots
 
 26* THE ffDG SCHOOL. 
 
 and hawthorn valleys excited, even from these unpolished and 
 illiterate peasants, warm bursts of admiration at their fragrance 
 and beauty. In some places the dark flowery heath clothed the 
 mountains to the tops, from which the grey mists, lit by a flood 
 of light, and breaking into masses before the morning breeze, 
 began to descend into the valleys beneath them ; whilst the 
 voice of the grouse, the bleating of sheep and lambs, the pee- 
 weet of the wheeling lapwing, and the song of the lark, threw 
 life and animation over the previous stillness of the country. 
 Sometimes a shallow river would cross the road, winding off 
 into a valley that was overhung on one side by rugged preci- 
 pices clothed with luxuriant heath and wild ash, whilst on the 
 other it was skirted by a long sweep of greensward, skimmed 
 by the twittering swallow, over which lay scattered numbers of 
 sheep, cows, brood mares, and colts many of them rising and 
 stretching themselves ere they resumed their pasture, leaving 
 the spots on which they lay of a deeper green. Occasionally, 
 too, a sly-looking fox might be seen lurking about a solitary 
 lamb, or brushing over the hills with a fat goose upon his back, 
 retreating to his den among the inaccessible rocks, after having 
 plundered some unsuspecting farmer. 
 
 As they advanced into the skirts of the cultivated country 
 they met many other beautiful spots of scenery among the 
 upland, considerable portions of which, particularly in long 
 sloping valleys that faced the morning sun, were covered with 
 hazel and brushwood ; where the unceasing and simple notes 
 of the cuckoo were incessantly plied, mingled with the more 
 mellow and varied notes of the thrush and blackbird. Some- 
 times the bright summer waterfall seemed, in the rays of the 
 sun, like a column of light, and the springs that issued from the 
 sides of the more distant and lofty mountains shone with a 
 steady, dazzling brightness, on which the eye could scarcely 
 rest. The morning, indeed, was beautiful, the fields in bloom, 
 and everything cheerful. As the sun rose in the heavens, 
 nature began gradually to awaken into life and happiness ; nor 
 was the natural grandeur of a Sabbath summer morning among 
 these piles of magnificent mountains, nor its heartfelt but more 
 artificial beauty in the cultivated country, lost even upon the 
 unphilosophical " boys " of Findramore, so true is it that the 
 appearance of nature will force enjoyment upon the most 
 uncultivated heart. 
 
 When they had arrived within two miles of the little town in 
 which Mat Kavanagh was fixed, they turned off into a deep 
 glen, a little to the left ; and, after having seated themselves
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 263 
 
 under a white-thorn which grew on the banks of a rivulet, they 
 began to devise the best immediate measures to be taken. 
 
 " Boys," said Tim Dolan, " how will we manage now with 
 this thief of a schoolmaster, at all? Come, Jack Traynor, you 
 that's up to still-house work escapin' and carryin' away stills 
 from gaugers, the bloody villains ! out wid yer spake, till we 
 hear your opinion." 
 
 " Do ye think, boys," said Andy Connell, " that we could 
 flatther him to come by fair mains?" 
 
 " Flatther him ! " said Traynor ; " and, by my sowl, if we 
 flatther him at all, it must be by the hair of the head. No, no ; 
 let us bring him first whether he will or not, an' ax his consint 
 aftherwards." 
 
 " I'll tell you what it is, boys," continued Connell: " I'll hould 
 a wager, if you lave him to me, I'll bring him wid his own 
 consint." 
 
 " No, nor sorra that you'll do, nor could do," replied Traynor; 
 " for, along wid everything else, he thinks he's not jist doated 
 on by the Findramore people, being one of the Ballyscanlan 
 tribe. No, no ; let two of us go to his place, and purtind that 
 we have other business in the fair of Clansallagh on Monday 
 next, and ax him in to dhrink, for he'll not refuse that, anyhow ; 
 then, when he's half tipsy, ax him to convoy us this far ; we'll 
 then meet you here, an' tell him some palaver or other sit 
 down again where we are now, and, afther making him dead 
 dhrunk, hoist a big stone in the creel, and Mat in the sack on 
 the other side, wid his head out, and off wid him ; and he 
 will know neither act nor part about it till we're at Findramore." 
 
 Having approved of this project, they pulled out each a 
 substantial complement of stout oaten bread, which served, 
 along with the whisky, for breakfast. The two persons pitched 
 on for decoying Mat were Dolan and Traynor, who accordingly 
 set out, full of glee at the singularity and drollness of their 
 undertaking. It is unnecessary to detail the ingenuity with 
 which they went about it because, in consequence of 
 Kavanagh's love of drink, very little ingenuity was necessary. 
 One circumstance, however, came to light, which gave them 
 much encouragement, and that was a discovery that Mat by no 
 means relished his situation. 
 
 In the meantime, those who stayed behind in the glen felt 
 their patience begin to flag a little, because of the delay made 
 by the others, who had promised, if possible, to have the 
 schoolmaster in the glen before two o'clock. But the fact was 
 that Mat, who was far less deficient in hospitality than in
 
 264 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 learning, brought them into his house, and not only treated 
 them to plenty of whisky, but made the wife prepare a dinner, 
 for which he detained them, swearing that, except they stopped 
 to partake of it, he would not convoy them to the place 
 appointed. Evening was, therefore, tolerably far advanced 
 when they made their appearance at the glen, in a very 
 equivocal state of sobriety Mat being by far the steadiest of 
 the three, but still considerably the worse for what he had 
 taken. He was now welcomed by a general huzza ; and on his 
 expressing his surprise at the appearances, they pointed to 
 their horses, telling him that they were bound for the fair of 
 Clansallagh, for the purpose of selling them. This was the 
 more probable as, when a fair occurs in Ireland, it is usual for 
 cattle-dealers, particularly horse-jockeys, to effect sales and 
 "show" their horses on the evening before. 
 
 Mat now sat down, and was vigorously plied with strong 
 poteen songs were sung, stories told, and every device resorted 
 to that was calculated to draw out and heighten his sense of 
 enjoyment ; nor were their efforts without success, for, in the 
 course of a short time, Mat was free from all earthly care, being 
 incapable of either speaking or standing. 
 
 " Now, boys," said Dolan, " let us do the thing clane an' 
 dacent. Let you, Jim Coogan, Brian Murphy, Paddy Delany, 
 and Andy Connell, go back, and tell the wife and two childhre 
 a cock-and-a-bull story about Mat say that he is coming to 
 Findramore for good and all, and that'll be thruth, you know ; 
 and that he ordhered yees to bring her and them aftherhim; 
 and we can come back for the furniture to-morrow." 
 
 A word was enough they immediately set off; and the 
 others, not wishing that Mat's wife should witness the mode of 
 his conveyance, proceeded home, for it was now dusk. The 
 plan succeeded admirably ; and in a short time the wife and 
 children, mounted behind the "boys "on the horses, were on 
 the way after them to Findramore. 
 
 The reader is already aware of the plan they had adopted for 
 translating Mat ; but, as it was extremely original, I will explain 
 it somewhat more fully. The moment the schoolmaster was 
 intoxicated to the necessary point that is to say, totally 
 helpless and insensible they opened the sack and put him in, 
 heels foremost, tying it in such a way about his neck as might 
 prevent his head from getting into it, thus avoiding the danger 
 of suffocation. The sack, with Mat at full length in it, was then 
 fixed to the pin of the straddle, so that he was in an erect 
 posture during the whole journey. A creel was then hung at
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 265 
 
 the other side, in which was placed a large stone, of sufficient 
 weight to preserve an equilibrium ; and, to prevent any acci- 
 dent, a droll fellow sat astride behind the straddle, amusing 
 himself and the rest by breaking jokes upon the novelty of 
 Mat's situation. 
 
 " Well, Mat, ma bouchal, how duv ye like your sitivation ? I 
 b'lieve, for all your larnin', the Findiamore boys have sacked 
 you at last ? '' 
 
 "Ay," exclaimed another, "he is sacked at last, in spite of 
 his Matthew-maticks." 
 
 " An', be my sowks," observed Traynor, " he'd be a long time 
 goin' up a Maypowl in the state he's in his own snail would 
 bate him." 1 
 
 " Yes," said another, " but he desarves credit for travellin' 
 from Clansallagh to Findramore, widout layin' a foot to the 
 ground 
 
 " ' Wan day wid Captain Whisky I wrastled a fall, 
 But faith I was no match for the captain at all 
 But faith I was no match for the captain at all, 
 Though the landlady's measures they were damnable small. 
 Tooral, looral, looral, looral, lido.' 
 
 Whoo hurroo ! my darlin's success to the Findramore boys! 
 Hurroo hurroo the Findramore boys for ever!" 
 
 " Boys, did ever yees hear the song Mat made on Ned 
 Mullen's fight wid Jimmy Connor's gander? Well, here it is to 
 the tune of ' Brian O'Lynn' 
 
 " ' As Ned and the gander wor basting each other, 
 I hard a loud cry from the grey goose his mother ; 
 I ran to assist him, wid my great speed, 
 Bud before I arrived the poor gander did bleed. 
 ' Alas ! ' says the gander, ' I'm very ill-trated, 
 For tracherous Mullen has me fairly defated ; 
 Bud had you been here for to show me fair play, 
 I could leather his puckan* around the lee bray.'" 
 
 " Bravo ! Mat," addressing the insensible schoolmaster 
 " success, poet. Hurroo for the Findramore boys ! the Bridge 
 boys for ever ! " 
 
 1 This alludes to a question in Cough's Arithmetic, which is 
 
 considered difficult by hedge schoolmasters. 
 
 2 Paunch.
 
 266 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 They then commenced, in a tone of mock gravity, to lecture 
 him upon his future duties detailing the advantages of his 
 situation, and the comforts he would enjoy among them 
 although they might as well have addressed themselves to the 
 stone on the other side. In this manner they got along, amus- 
 ing themselves at Mat's expense, and highly elated at the 
 success of their undertaking. About two o'clock in the 
 morning they reached the top of the little hill above the 
 village, when, on looking back along the level stretch of road 
 which I have already described, they noticed their companions, 
 with Mat's wife and children, moving briskly after them. A 
 general huzza now took place, which in a few minutes was 
 answered by two or three dozen of the young folks, who were 
 assembled in Barny Brady's waiting for their arrival. The 
 scene now became quite animated cheer after cheer succeeded 
 jokes, laughter, and rustic wit, pointed by the spirit of 
 Brady's poteen, flew briskly about. When Mat was unsacked, 
 several of them came up, and, shaking him cordially by the 
 hand, welcomed him among them. To the kindness of this 
 reception, however, Mat was wholly insensible, having been 
 for the greater part of the journey in a profound sleep. The 
 boys next slipped the loop of the sack off the straddle-pin ; 
 and carrying Mat into a farmer's house, they deposited him on 
 a settle-bed, where he slept, unconscious of the journey he had 
 performed, until breakfast-time on the next morning. In the 
 meantime, the wife and children were taken care of by Mrs. 
 Connell, who provided them with a bed and every other com- 
 fort which they could require. The next morning, when Mat 
 awoke, his first call was for a drink. I should have here 
 observed that Mrs. Kavanagh had been sent for by the good 
 woman in whose house Mat had slept, that they might all 
 breakfast and have a drop together, for they had already 
 succeeded in reconciling her to the change. 
 
 " Wather 1 " said Mat " a drink of wather, if it's to be had 
 for love or money, or I'll split wid druth I'm all in a state 
 of conflagration ; and my head by the sowl of Newton, the 
 inventor of fluxions, but my head is a complete illucidation of 
 the centrifugle motion, so it is. Tundher-an-turf 1 is there no 
 wather to be had? Nancy, I say, for God's sake, quicken 
 yourself wid the hydraulics, or the best mathematician in 
 Ireland's gone to the abode of Euclid and Pythagoras, that 
 first invented the multiplication tabie." 
 
 On cooling his burning blood with the " hydraulics," he again 
 lay down, with the intention of composing himself for another
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 267 
 
 sleep ; but his eye having noticed the novelty of his situation, 
 he once more called Nancy. 
 
 " Nancy, avourneen," he inquired, " will you be afther 
 resolving me one single proposition Where am I at the 
 present spaking ? Is it in the Siminary at home, Nancy ?" 
 
 Nancy in the meantime had been desired to answer in the 
 affirmative, hoping that if his mind was made easy on that 
 point, he might refresh himself by another hour or two's sleep, 
 as he appeared to be not at all free from the effects of his 
 previous intoxication. 
 
 " Why, Mat, jewel, where else would you be, alannah, but at 
 home ? Sure, isn't here Jack, an' Biddy, an' myself, Mat, agra, 
 along wid me. Your head isn't well, but all you want is a good 
 rousin' sleep." 
 
 " Very well, Nancy very well ; that's enough quite satis- 
 facthory quod erat demonstrandum. May all kinds of bad 
 luck rest upon the Findramore boys, anyway ! The unlucky 
 vagabonds I'm the third they've done up. Nancy, off wid 
 ye, like quicksilver, for the priest.'' 
 
 " The priest ! Why, Mat, jewel, what puts that in your 
 head ? Sure, there's nothing wrong wid ye, only the sup o' 
 drink you tuck yestherday." 
 
 " Go, woman," said Mat ; " did you ever know me to make a 
 calculation ? I tell you I'm non compos mentis from head to 
 heel. Head I by my sowl, Nancy, it'll soon be a caput 
 mortuum wid me I'm far gone in a disease they call an 
 ophtical delusion the divil a thing less it is me bein' in my 
 own place, an' to think I'm lyin' in a settle-bed ; that there is 
 a large dresser, covered wid pewter dishes and plates ; and, to 
 crown all, the door on the wrong side of the house. Off wid 
 ye, and tell his reverence that I want to be anointed, and to die 
 in pace and charity wid all men. May the most especial kind 
 of bad luck light down upon you, Findramore, and all that's in 
 you, both man and baste you have given me my gruel along 
 wid the rest ; but, thank God, you won't hang me, anyhow ! 
 Off, Nancy, for the priest, till I die like a Christhan, in pace and 
 forgiveness wid the world ; all kinds of hard fortune to them! 
 Make haste, woman, if you expect me to die like a Christhan 1 
 If they had let me alone till I'd publish to the world my 
 Treatise upon Conic Sections but to be cut off on my march 
 to fame. Another draught of the hydraulics, Nancy, an' then 
 for the priest ; but see, bring Father Connell, the curate, for 
 he understands something about Matthew-maticks ; an' never 
 heed Father Roger, for little he knows about them, not even
 
 268 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 the difference between a right line in the page of history, to 
 his everlasting disgrace be it recorded,! " 
 
 " Mat," replied Nancy, scarcely preserving her gravity, 
 "keep yourself from talkin', an' fall asleep ; then you'll be well 
 enough." 
 
 "Is there e'er a sup at all in the house ? " said Mat ; " if there 
 is, let me get it ; for there's an ould proverb, though it's a most 
 unmathematical axiom as ever was invinted ' Try a hair of the 
 same dog that bit you.' Give me a glass, Nancy, anyhow, an' 
 you can go for Father Connell after. Oh, by the sowl of Isaac, 
 that invinted fluxions, what's this for?" 
 
 A general burst of laughter followed this demand and 
 ejaculation ; and Mat sat up once more in the settle and 
 examined the place with keener scrutiny. Nancy herself 
 laughed heartily ; and, as she handed him the full glass, 
 entered into an explanation of the circumstances attending 
 his translation. 
 
 Mat, at all times rather of a pliant disposition, felt rejoiced 
 on finding that he was still compos mentis; and on hearing 
 what took place he could not help entering into the humour 
 of the enterprise, at which he laughed as heartily as any of 
 them. 
 
 " Mat," said the farmer and half-a-dozen of the neighbours, 
 "you're a happy man ; there's a hundred of the boys have a 
 school-house half built for you this same blessed sunshiny 
 mornin', while you're lying at ase in your bed." 
 
 " By the sowl of Newton, that invinted fluxions ! " replied 
 Mat, " but I'll take revenge for the disgrace you put upon my 
 profession, by stringing up a schoolmaster among you, and I'll 
 hang you all ! It's death to stale a four-footed animal ; but 
 what do you desarve for stalin' a Christhan baste a two-legged 
 schoolmaster without feathers eighteen miles, and he not to 
 know it ? " 
 
 In the course of a short time Mat was dressed, and having 
 found benefit from the "hair of the dog that bit him," he tried 
 another glass, which strung his nerves, or, as he himself 
 expressed it " they've got the raal mathematical tinsion 
 again." What the farmer said, however, about the school- 
 house had been true. Early that morning all the growing and 
 grown young men of Findramore and its "vircinity" had 
 assembled, selected a suitable spot, and, with merry hearts, 
 were then busily engaged in erecting a school-house for their 
 general accommodation. 
 
 The manner of building hedge school-houses being rather
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 269 
 
 curious, I will describe it. The usual spot selected for their 
 erection is a ditch on the roadside, in some situation where 
 there will be as little damp as possible. From such a spot an 
 excavation is made equal to the size of the building, so that, 
 when this is scooped out, the back side- wall and the two gables 
 are already formed, the banks being dug perpendicularly. The 
 front side-wall, with a window in each side of the door, is then 
 built of clay or green sods laid along in rows ; the gables are 
 also topped with sods, and perhaps a row or two laid upon the 
 back side-wall, if it should be considered too low. Having got 
 the erection of Mat's house thus far, they procured a scraw- 
 spade, and repaired with a couple of dozen of cars to the next 
 bog, from which they cut the light heathy surface in strips the 
 length of the roof. A scraw-spade is an instrument resembling 
 the letter T, with an iron plate at the lower end, considerably 
 bent, and well adapted to the purpose for which it is intended. 
 Whilst one party cut the scraws, another bound the couples and 
 banks, and a third cut as many green branches as were 
 sufficient to wattle it. The couples, being bound, were raised 
 the ribs laid on then the wattles, and afterwards the 
 scraws. 
 
 Whilst these successive processes went forward, many others 
 had been engaged all the morning cutting rushes ; and the 
 scraws were no sooner laid on than half-a-dozen thatchers 
 mounted the roof, and long before the evening was closed a 
 school-house, capable of holding near a hundred children, was 
 finished. But among the peasantry no new house is ever put 
 up without a hearth-warming and a dance. Accordingly, the 
 clay floor was paired a fiddler procured Barny Brady and 
 his stock of poteen sent for ; the young women of the village 
 and surrounding neighbourhood attended in their best finery ; 
 dancing commenced and it was four o'clock the next morning 
 when the merrymakers departed, leaving Mat a new home and 
 a hard floor, ready for the reception of his scholars. 
 
 Business now commenced. At nine o'clock the next day 
 Mat's furniture was settled in a small cabin, given to him at a 
 cheap rate by one of the neighbouring farmers ; for, whilst the 
 school-house was being built, two men, with horses and cars, 
 had gone to Clansallagh, accompanied by Nancy, and removed 
 the furniture, such as it was, to their new residence. Nor was 
 Mat, upon the whole, displeased at what had happened. He was 
 now fixed in a flourishing country fertile and well cultivated; 
 nay, the bright landscape which his school-house commanded 
 was sufficient in itself to reconcile him to his situation. The 
 
 19
 
 270 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 inhabitants were in comparatively good circumstances ; many 
 of them wealthy, respectable farmers, and capable of remun- 
 erating him very decently for his literary labours ; and what 
 was equally flattering, there was a certainty of his having a 
 numerous and well-attended school, in a neighbourhood with 
 whose inhabitants he was acquainted. 
 
 Honest, kind-hearted Paddy ! pity that you should ever feel 
 distress or hunger ! pity that you should be compelled to seek 
 in another land the hard-earned pittance by which you keep the 
 humble cabin over the head of your chaste wife and naked 
 children! Alas! what noble materials for composing a national 
 character, of which humanity might be justly proud, do the 
 lower orders of the Irish possess, if raised and cultivated by a 
 Christian education ! Pardon me, gentle readers, for this 
 momentary ebullition ; I grant I am a little dark now. I 
 assure you, however, the tear of enthusiastic admiration is 
 warm on my eyelids, when I remember the flitches of bacon, 
 the sacks of potatoes, the bags of meal, the miscawns of 
 butter, and the dishes of eggs not omitting crate after crate 
 of turf which came in such rapid succession to Mat Kavanagh 
 during the first week in which he opened his school. Ay, and 
 many a bottle of stout poteen, when 
 
 " The eye of the ganger saw it not," 
 
 was, with a sly, good-humoured wink, handed over to Mat, or 
 Nancy, no matter which, from under the comfortable drab jock, 
 with velvet-covered collar, erect about the honest ruddy face of 
 a warm, smiling farmer, or even the tattered frieze of a poor 
 labourer, anxious to secure the attention of the "masther" to 
 his little " Shoneen" whom, in the extravagance of his ambition, 
 he destined to " wear the robes as a clargy." Let no man say, 
 I repeat, that the Irish are not fond of education. 
 
 In the course of a month Mat's school was full to the door- 
 posts; for, in fact, he had the parish to himself many attending 
 from a distance of three, four, and five miles. His merits, how- 
 ever, were believed to be great, and his character for learning 
 stood high, though unjustly so ; for a more superficial, and, at 
 the same time, a more presuming dunce never existed ; but his 
 character alone could secure him a good attendance. He, 
 therefore, belied the unfavourable prejudices against the Fin- 
 dramore folk which had gone abroad, and was a proof, in his 
 own person, that the reason of the former schoolmasters' 
 miscarriage lay in the belief of their incapacity which existed.
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 271 
 
 among the people. I5ut Mat was one of those showy, shallow 
 fellows, who did not lack for assurance. 
 
 The first step a hedge schoolmaster took on establishing 
 himself in a school was to write out, in his best copperplate 
 hand, a flaming advertisement, detailing, at full length, the 
 several branches he professed himself capable of teaching. I 
 have seen many of these as who that is acquainted with 
 Ireland has not ? and, beyond all doubt, if the persons that 
 issued them were acquainted with the various heads recapitu- 
 lated, they must have been buried in the most profound 
 obscurity, as no man but a walking encyclopaedia an 
 Admirable Crichton could claim an intimacy with them, 
 embracing, as they often did, the whole circle of human 
 knowledge. 'Tis true the vanity of the pedagogue had full 
 scope in these advertisements, as there was none to bring him 
 to an account, except some rival, who could only attack him 
 on those practical subjects which were known to both. Inde- 
 pendently of this, there was a good-natured collusion between 
 them on those points which were beyond their knowledge, 
 inasmuch as they were not practical but speculative, and by 
 no means involved their character or personal interests. On 
 the next Sunday, therefore, after Mat's establishment at 
 Findramore, you might see a circle of the peasantry assembled 
 at the chapel-door, perusing, with suitable reverence and 
 admiration on their faces, the following advertisement ; or 
 perhaps Mat himself, with a learned, consequential air, in the 
 act of explaining it to them. 
 
 "EDUCATION. 
 
 " Mr. Matthew Kavanagh, Philomath and Professor of the 
 Learned Languages, begs leave to inform the Inhabitants of 
 Findramore and its itircinity that he Lectures on the following 
 Branches of Education, in his Seminary at the above-recited 
 place : 
 
 " Spelling, Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, upon altogether 
 new principles, hitherto undiscovered by any excepting himself, 
 and for which he expects a Patent from Trinity College, Dublin ; 
 or, at any rate, from Squire Johnston, Esq., who paternizes 
 many of the pupils. Book-keeping, by single and double entry, 
 Geometry, Trigonometry, Stereometry, Mensuration, Naviga- 
 tion, Gauging, Surveying, Dialling, Astronomy, Astrology, 
 Austerity, Fluxions, Geography, ancient and modern Maps ?
 
 27* THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 the Projection of the Spear Algebra, the Use of the Globes, 
 Natural and Moral Philosophy, Pneumatics, Optics, Dioptics, 
 Catroptics, Hydraulics, ^rostatics. Geology, Glorification, 
 Divinity, Mythology, Midicinality, Physic, by theory only, 
 Metaphysics practically, Chemistry, Electricity, Galvanism, 
 Mechanics, Antiquities, Agriculture, Ventilation, Explosion, etc. 
 
 " In Classics Grammar, Cordery, ^sop's Fables, Erasmus' 
 Colloquies, Cornelius Nepos, Phcedrus, Valerius Maximus, 
 Justin, Ovid, Sallust, Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, Persius, Terence, 
 Tully's Offices, Cicero, Manouverius Turgidus, Esculapius, 
 Regerius, Satanus Nigrus, Quinctilian, Livy, Thomas Aquinas, 
 Cornelius Agrippa, and Cholera Morbus. 
 
 " Greek Grammar, Greek Testament, Lucian, Homer, 
 Sophocles, Eschylus, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Xenophon, 
 Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and the Works of Alexander the 
 Great ; the manners, habits, customs, usages, meditations of 
 the Grecians ; the Greek digamma resolved, Prosody, Com- 
 position both in prose-verse, and oratory in English, Latin, 
 and Greek ; together with various other branches of learning, 
 and scholastic profundity quos enumerare longum est along 
 with Irish Radically, and a small taste of Hebrew upon the 
 Masoretic text. 
 
 " MATTHEW KAVANAGH, Philomath." 
 
 Having posted this document upon the chapel-door, and in 
 all the public places and cross-roads of the parish, Mat con- 
 sidered himself as having done his duty. He now began to teach, 
 and his school continued to increase to his heart's content, 
 every day bringing him fresh scholars. In this manner he 
 flourished till the beginning of winter, when those boys who, by 
 the poverty of their parents, had been compelled to go to service 
 to the neighbouring farmers flocked to him in numbers, quite 
 voracious for knowledge. An addition was consequently built to 
 the school-house, which was considerably too small ; so that, as 
 Christmas approached, it would be difficult to find a more 
 numerous or merry establishment under the roof of a hedge 
 school. But it is time to give an account of its interior. 
 
 The reader will, then, be pleased to picture to himself such 
 a house as I have already described in a line with the hedge ; 
 the eave of the back roof within a foot of the ground behind 
 it; a large hole exactly in the middle of the "rtggtn," as a 
 chimney ; immediately under which is an excavation in the 
 floor, burned away by a large fire of turf, loosely heaped 
 together. This is surrounded by a circle of urchins, sitting
 
 TH HDG SCHOOL 273 
 
 on the bare earth, and exhibiting a series of speckled shins, 
 all radiating towards the fire, like sausages on a Poloni dish. 
 There they are wedged as close as they can sit ; one with 
 half a thigh off his breeches another with half an arm off 
 his tattered coat a third without breeches at all, wearing as 
 a substitute a piece of his mother's old petticoat pinned 
 about his loins a fourth, no coat a fifth with a cap on him 
 because he has got a scald, from having sat under the juice 
 of fresh hung bacon a sixth with a black eye a seventh with 
 two rags about his heels to keep his kibes clean an eighth 
 crying to get home because he has got a headache, though it 
 may be as well to hint that there is a drag-hunt to start from 
 beside his father's in the course of the day. In this ring, with 
 his legs stretched in a most lordly manner, sits, upon a deal 
 chair, Mat himself, with his hat on, basking in the enjoyment 
 of unlimited authority. His dress consists of a black coat, 
 considerably in want of repair, transferred to his shoulders 
 through the means of a clothes-broker in the county town ; 
 a white cravat, round a large stuffing, having that part which 
 comes in contact with the chin somewhat streaked with brown 
 a black waistcoat with one or two "tooth-an'-egg" metal 
 buttons sewed on where the original had fallen off black 
 corduroy inexpressibles, twice dyed, and sheep's-grey stockings. 
 In his hand is a large broad ruler, the emblem of his power, 
 the woful instrument of executive justice, and the signal of 
 terror to all within his jurisdiction. In a corner below is a pile 
 of turf, where, on entering, every boy throws his two sods with 
 a pitch from under his left arm. He then comes up to the 
 master, catches his forelock with finger and thumb, and bobs 
 down his head, by way of making him a bow, and goes to his 
 seat. Along the walls on the ground is a series of round 
 stones, some of them capped with a straw collar or hassock, 
 on which the boys sit ; others have bosses, and many of them 
 hobs a light but compact kind of boggy substance found in 
 the mountains. On these several Of them sit ; the greater 
 number of them, however, have no seats whatever, but squat 
 themselves down, without compunction, on the hard floor. 
 Hung about, on wooden pegs driven into the walls, are the 
 shapeless yellow " caubeens " of such as can boast the luxury 
 of a hat, or caps made of goat or hare skin, the latter having 
 the ears of the animal rising ludicrously over the temples, or 
 cocked out at the sides, and the scut either before or behind, 
 according to the taste or the humour of the wearer. The floor, 
 which is only swept every Saturday, is strewed over with tops
 
 274 Tff HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 of quills, pens, pieces of broken slate, and tattered leaves of 
 Reading made Easy, or fragments of old copies. In one 
 corner is a knot engaged at " Fox-and-geese," or the " Walls 
 of Troy," on their slates ; in another, a pair of them are 
 "fighting bottles," which consists in striking the bottoms 
 together, and he whose bottle breaks first of course loses. 
 Behind the master is a third set, playing " heads and points " 
 a game of pins. Some are more industriously employed in 
 writing their copies, which they perform seated on the ground, 
 with their paper on a copy-board a piece of planed deal the 
 size of the copy, an appendage now nearly exploded their 
 cheek-bones laid within half an inch of the left side of the 
 copy, and the eye set to guide the motion of the hand across, 
 and to regulate the straightness of the lines and the forms of 
 the letters. Others, again, of the more grown boys, are working 
 their sums with becoming industry. In a dark corner area pair 
 of urchins thumping each other, their eyes steadily fixed on the 
 master, lest he might happen to glance in that direction. Near 
 the master himself are the larger boys, from twenty-two to fifteen 
 shaggy-headed slips, with loose-breasted shirts lying open 
 about their bare chests ; ragged colts, with white, dry, bristling 
 beards upon them, that never knew a razor ; strong stockings on 
 their legs ; heavy brogues, with broad, nail-paved soles ; and 
 breeches open at the knees. Nor is the establishment altogether 
 without females ; but these, in hedge schools, were too few in 
 number to form a distinct class. They were, for the most part, 
 the daughters of wealthy farmers, who considered it necessary to 
 their respectability that they should not be altogether illiterate; 
 such a circumstance being a considerable drawback, in the 
 opinion of an admirer, from the character of a young woman 
 for whom he was about to propose a drawback, too, which was 
 always weighty in proportion to her wealth or respectability. 
 
 Having given our readers an imperfect sketch of the interior 
 of Mat's establishment, we will now proceed, however feebly, 
 to represent him at work with ail the machinery of the system 
 in full operation. 
 
 " Come, boys, rehearse (buz, buz, buz) I'll soon be after 
 calling up the first spelling lesson (buz, buz, buz) then the 
 mathematician book-keepers Latinists and Grecians, success- 
 fully. (Buz, buz, buz.) Silence there below ! your pens. Tim 
 Casey, isn't this a purty hour o' the day for you to come into 
 school at? arrah, and what kept you, Tim? Walk up wid your- 
 self here, tilf we have a confabulation together; you see I love 
 to be talking to you."
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 275 
 
 " Sir, Larry Brana^an, here ; he's throwing spits at me out of 
 his pen." (Buz, buz, buz.) 
 
 " By my sowl, Larry, there's a rod in steep for you." 
 
 " Fly away, Jack fly away, Jill ; come again, Jack " 
 
 " I had to go to Paddy Nowlan's for tobaccy, sir, for my 
 father." (Weeping with his hand knowingly across his face 
 one eye laughing at his comrades.) 
 
 " You lie, it wasn't." 
 
 " If you call me a liar agin, I'll give you a dig in the mug." 
 
 " It's not in your jacket." 
 
 "Isn't it?" 
 
 " Behave yourself; ha ! there's the masther looking at you 
 ye'll get it now." 
 
 " None at all, Tim ? And she's not after sinding an excuse 
 wid you ? What's that undher your arm ? " 
 
 " My Gough, sir." (Buz, buz, buz.) 
 
 " Silence, boys ! And you blackguard Lilliputian you, what 
 kept you away till this ? " 
 
 " One bird pickin', two men thrashin' ; one bird pickin', two 
 men thrashin' ; one bird pickin' 
 
 " Sir, they're stickin' pins in me here." 
 
 "Who is, Briney?" 
 
 " I don't know, sir ; they're all at it." 
 
 " Boys, I'll go down to yees." 
 
 " I can't carry him, sir ; he'd be too heavy for me. Let 
 Larry Toole do it, he's stronger nor me ; any way, there he's 
 putting a corker pin in his mouth. 1 ' (Buz, buz, buz.) 
 
 " Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo ! I'll never btay away agin, sir; indeed 
 I won't, sir. Oh, sir dear, pardon me this wan time ; and if 
 ever you cotch me doing the like agin, I'll give you lave to welt 
 the sowl out of me." (Buz, buz, buz.) 
 
 " Behave yourself, Barny Byrne." 
 
 " I'm not touching you." 
 
 " Yes, you are ; didn't you make me blot my copy." 
 
 " Ho, by the livin', I'll pay you goin' home for this." 
 
 " Hand me the taws." 
 
 " Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo what'll I do, at all at all? Oh, 
 sir dear, sir dear, sir dear hoo-hoo-hoo !" 
 
 " Did she send no message, good or bad, before I lay on ?" 
 
 " Oh, not a word, sir, only that my father killed a pig yestherday, 
 and he wants you to go up to-day at dinner-time." (Buz, buz, buz.) 
 
 " It's time to get lave ; it isn't it is ; it isn't it is," etc. 
 
 "You lie, I say; your faction never was able to fight ours. 
 Didn't we lick all your dirty breed in Buillagh-battha fair?"
 
 276 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 " Silence there!" (Buz, buz, buz.) 
 
 "Will you meet us on Sathurday, and we'll fight it out clane?" 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha ! Tim, but you got a big fright, anyhow. Whist, 
 ma bouchal; sure I was only jokin' you ; and sorry I'd be to 
 bate your father's son, Tim. Come over and sit beside myself 
 at the fire here. Get up, Micky Donoghue, you big burnt- 
 shinn'd spalpeen you, and let the dacent boy sit at the fire." 
 
 " Hullabaloo hoo-hoo-hoo to go to give me such a welt only 
 for sitting at the fire, and me brought turf wid me." 
 
 "To-day, Tim?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "At dinner-time, is id?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Faith, the dacent strain was always in the same family." 
 (Buz, buz, buz.) 
 
 " Horns, horns, cock horns ; oh, you up'd wid them, you lifted 
 your fingers that's a mark, now hould your face till I blacken 
 you." 
 
 " Do you call thim two sods, Jack Lanigan ? Why, 'tis only 
 one long one broke in the middle ; but you must make it up 
 to-morrow, Jack. How is your mother's tooth ? did she get 
 it pulled out yet?" 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " Well, tell her to come to me, an' I'll write a charm for it 
 that'll cure her. What kept you till now, Paddy Magouran?" 
 
 " Couldn't come any sooner, sir." 
 
 " You couldn't, sir ; and why, sir, couldn't you come any 
 sooner, sir?" 
 
 " See, sir, what Andy Nowlan done to my copy." (Buz, buz, 
 buz.) 
 
 " Silence! I'll massacree yees if yees don't make less noise." 
 (Buz, buz, buz.) 
 
 "I was down with Mrs. Kavanagh, sir." 
 
 "You were, Paddy an' Paddy, ma bouchal, what war you 
 doing there, Paddy?" 
 
 " Masther, sir, spake to Jim Kenny here ; he made my nose 
 bleed." 
 
 "Eh, Paddy?" 
 
 " I was bringin' her a layin' hen, sir, that my mother promised 
 her at mass on Sunday last." 
 
 "Ah, Paddy, you're a game bird yourself, wid your layin' 
 hens ; you're as full o' mischief as an egg's full o' mate (omnes, 
 ha, ha, ha, hjf !). Silence, boys what are you laughin' at ? ha, 
 ha, ha 1 Paddy, can you spell Nebachodnazure for me?"
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 277 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " No, nor a better scholar, Paddy, could not do that, ma 
 bcuchal; but /'// spell it for you. Silence, boys whist, all of 
 yees, till I spell Nebachodnazure for Paddy Magouran. Listen ; 
 and you yourself, Paddy, are one of the letthers 
 
 " ' A turf and a clod spells Nebachod 
 
 A knife and a razure spells Nebachodnazure 
 Three pair of boots and five pair of shoes 
 Spells Nebachodnazure, the King of the Jews.' 
 
 Now, Paddy, that's spelling Nebachodnazure by the science of 
 Ventilation; but you'll never go that deep, Paddy." 
 
 " I want to go out, if you plase, sir." 
 
 " Is that the way you ax me, you vagabone ?" 
 
 " I want to go out, sir" (pulling down the forelock). 
 
 " Yes, that's something dacenter. By the sowl of Newton, that 
 invinted fluxions, if ever you forget to make a bow again I'll flog 
 the enthrils out of you wait till the pass comes in." 
 
 Then comes the spelling lesson. 
 
 " Come, boys, stand up to the spelling lesson." 
 
 " Micky, show me your book till I look at my word I'm 
 fifteenth." 
 
 " Wait till I see my own." 
 
 "Why do you crush for?" 
 
 " That's my place." 
 
 "No, it's not." 
 
 " Sir, spake to I'll tell the masther." 
 
 " What's the matther there ? " 
 
 " Sir, he won't let me into my place." 
 
 " I'm before you." 
 
 " No, you're not." 
 
 1 1 say I am." 
 
 ' You lie, pug-face. Ha ! I called you pug-face ; tell now, if 
 you dare." 
 
 ' Well, boys, down with your pins in the book. Who's king ?" 
 
 1 1 am, sir." 
 
 ' Who's queen ?" 
 
 ' Me, sir." 
 
 'Who's prince?" 
 
 ; I am prince, sir." 
 
 1 Tag-rag and bob-tail, fall into your places." 
 
 ' I've no pin, sir." 
 
 ' Well, down with you to the tail now, boys." 
 
 Having gone through the spelling task, it was Mat's custom
 
 278 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 to give out six hard words, selected according to his judgment, 
 as a final test, but he did not always confine himself to that. 
 Sometimes he would put a number of syllables arbitrarily 
 together, forming a most heterogeneous combination of articu- 
 late sounds. 
 
 " Now, boys, here's a deep word that'll thry yees. Come, 
 Larry, spell me-mo-man-dran-san-ti-fi-can-du-ban-dan-ti-al-i-ty, 
 or mis-an-thro-po-mor-phi-ta-ni-a-nus-mi-ca-li-a-tionj that's 
 too hard for you, is it ? Well, then, spell phthisic. Oh, that's 
 physic you're spellin'. Now, Larry, do you know the difference 
 between physic and phthisic?" 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " Well, I'll expound it : phthisic, you see, manes whisht, 
 boys; will yees hould yer tongues there phthisic, Larry, 
 signifies that is, phthisic mind, it's not physic I'm expound- 
 ing; phthisic boys, will yees stop yer noise there signifies 
 
 but, Larry, it's so deep a word in larnin' that I should 
 
 draw it out on a slate for you. And now I remimber, man alive, 
 you're not far enough on yet to undherstand it ; but what's 
 physic, Larry ? " 
 
 " Isn't that, sir, what my father tuck the day he got sick, 
 sir?" 
 
 " That's the very thing, Larry. It has what lamed men call a 
 medical property, and resembles little rickety Dan Reilly there 
 it retrogrades. Och ! och 1 I'm the boy that knows things 
 you see now how I expounded them two hard words for yees, 
 boys don't yees ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir," etc., etc. 
 
 " So, Larry, you haven't the larnin' for that either. But here's 
 an asier one spell me Ephabridotas (Epaphroditas) you 
 can't! hut, man! you're a big dunce entirely, that little 
 shoneen Sharkey there below would sack. God be wid the day 
 when I was the likes of you ; it's I that was the bright gorsoon 
 entirely; and so sign was on it, when a great larned traveller 
 silence, boys, till I tell yees this (a dead silence) from Thrinity 
 College, all the way in Dublin, happened to meet me one day 
 seeing the slate and Gough, you see, undher my arm, he axes 
 me, ' Arrah, Mat,' says he, ' what are you in?' says he. ' Faix, 
 I'm in my waistcoat, for one thing,' says I, off-hand silence, 
 childhre, and don't laugh so loud (ha, ha, ha !). So he looks 
 closer at me. ' I see that,' says he ; ' but what are you reading ?' 
 'Nothing at all, at all,' says I ; 'bad manners to the taste, as 
 you may see, if you've your eyesight.' ' I think,' says he, 
 ' you'll be apt to die in vour waistcoat ; ' and set spurs to a fine
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 279 
 
 saddle mare he rid faith, he did so thought me so cute 
 (omnes ha, ha, ha !). Whisht, boys, whisht ; isn't it a terrible 
 thing that I can't tell yees a joke but you split your sides laugh- 
 ing at it (ha, ha, ha !) don't laugh so loud, Barney Casey" 
 (ha, ha, ha !). 
 
 Barney: " I want to go out, if you plase, sir." 
 
 " Go, avick ; you'll be a good scholar yet, Barney. Faith, 
 Barney knows whin to laugh, anyhow. 
 
 " Well, Larry, you can't spell Ephabridotas ? thin here's a 
 short weeshy one, and whoever spells it will get the pins; spell 
 a red rogue wid three letters. You, Micky? Dan? Jack? 
 Natty? Alick? Andy? Pether? Jim? Tim? Pat? Rody? you? 
 you ? you ? Now, boys, I'll hould ye my little Andy here, that's 
 only beginning the Rational Spelling Book, bates you all ; 
 come here, Andy, alanna. Now, boys, if he bates you, you must 
 all bring him a little miscaivn of butter between two kale 
 blades in the mornin' for himself. Here, Andy, avourneen, 
 spell red rogue wid three letthers." 
 
 Andy: "Ma t Mat." 
 
 " No, no, avick ; that's myself, Andy ; it's red rogue, Andy 
 hem! F " 
 
 " F o x fox." 
 
 "That's a man, Andy. Now, boys, mind what you owe Andy 
 in the mornin', plase God, won't yees ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." " Yes, sir." " Yes, sir." " I will, sir." " And I 
 will, sir." "And so will I, sir," etc., etc., etc. 
 
 I know not whether the Commissioners of Education found 
 the monitorial system of instruction in such of the old hedge 
 schools as maintained an obstinate resistance to the innovations 
 of modern plans. That Bell and Lancaster deserve much credit 
 for applying and extending the principle (I speak without any 
 reference to its merits) I do not hesitate to grant ; but it is 
 unquestionably true that the principle was reduced to practice 
 in Irish hedge schools long before either of these worthy 
 gentlemen were in existence. I do not, indeed, at present 
 remember whether or not they claim it as a discovery, or 
 simply as an adaptation of a practice which experience, in 
 accidental cases, had found useful, and which they considered 
 capable of more extensive benefit. I remember many instances, 
 however, in which it was applied and applied, in my opinion, 
 though not as a permanent system, yet more judiciously than it 
 is at present. I think it a mistake to suppose that silence 
 among a number of children in school is conducive to the 
 improvement either of health or intellect. That the chest and
 
 280 THE &> SCHOOL. 
 
 the lungs are benefited by giving full play to the voice I think 
 will not be disputed ; and that a child is capable of more 
 intense study and abstraction in the din of a school-room than 
 in partial silence (if I may be permitted the word) is a fact 
 which I think any rational observation would establish. There 
 is something cheering and cheerful in the noise of friendly 
 voices about us it is a restraint taken off the mind, and it will 
 run the lighter for it ; it produces more excitement, and puts 
 the intellect in a better frame for study. The obligation to 
 silence, though it may give the master more ease, imposes a 
 new moral duty upon the child, the sense of which must 
 necessarily weaken his application. Let the boy speak aloud, 
 if he pleases that is, to a certain pitch ; let his blood cir- 
 culate ; let the natural secretions take place, and the physical 
 effluvia be thrown off by a free exercise of voice and limbs ; 
 but do not keep him dumb and motionless as a statue his 
 blood and his intellect both in a state of stagnation, and his 
 spirit below zero. Do not send him in quest of knowledge 
 alone, but let him have cheerful companionship on his way ; for 
 depend upon it, that the man who expects too much either in 
 discipline or morals from a boy is not, in my opinion, acquainted 
 with human nature. If an urchin titter at his own joke, or that 
 of another, if he give him a jagg of a pin under the desk, imagine 
 not that it will do him an injury, whatever phrenologists may 
 say concerning the organ of destructiveness. It is an exercise 
 to the mind, and he will return to his business with greater 
 vigour and effect. Children are not men, nor influenced by the 
 same motives they do not reflect, because their capacity for 
 reflection is imperfect ; so is their reason : whereas, on the 
 contrary, their faculties for education (excepting judgment, 
 which strengthens my argument) are in greater vigour in youth 
 than in manhood. The general neglect of this distinction is, I 
 am convinced, a stumbling-block in the way of youthful instruc- 
 tion, though it characterises all our modern systems. We 
 should never forget that they are children ; nor should we bind 
 them by a system whose standard is taken from the maturity of 
 human intellect. We may bend our reason to theirs, but we 
 cannot elevate their capacity to our own. We may produce an 
 external appearance sufficiently satisfactory to ourselves ; but, 
 in the meantime, it is probable that the child may be growing 
 in hypocrisy, and settling down into the habitual practice of a 
 fictitious character. 
 
 But another and more serious objection may be urged against 
 the present strictness of scholastic discipline which is, that it
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 281 
 
 deprives the boy of a sense of free and independent agency. I 
 speak this with limitations, for a master should be a monarch 
 in his school, but by no means a tyrant ; and decidedly the very 
 worst species of tyranny is that which stretches the young mind 
 upon the bed of too rigorous a discipline like the despot who 
 exacted from his subjects so many barrels of perspiration when- 
 ever there came a long and severe frost. Do not familiarise the 
 mind when young to the toleration of slavery, lest it prove 
 afterwards incapable of recognising and relishing the principle 
 of an honest and manly independence. I have known many 
 children on whom a rigour of discipline, affecting the mind only 
 (for corporal punishment is now almost exploded), impressed a 
 degree of timidity almost bordering on pusillanimity. Away, 
 then, with the specious and long-winded arguments of a false 
 and mistaken philosophy. A child will be a child, and a boy a 
 boy, to the conclusion of the chapter. Bell or Lancaster would 
 not relish the pap or caudle-cup three times a day ; neither 
 would the infant on the breast feel comfortable after a gorge of 
 ox-beef. Let them, therefore, put a little of the mother's milk 
 of human kindness and consideration into their strait-laced 
 systems. 
 
 A hedge schoolmaster was the general scribe of the parish, 
 to whom all who wanted letters or petitions written uniformly 
 applied and these were glorious opportunities for the pompous 
 display of pedantry. The remuneration usually consisted of a 
 bottle of whisky. 
 
 A poor woman, for instance, informs Mat that she wishes to 
 have a letter written to her son, who is a soldier abroad. 
 
 "An" how long is he gone, ma'am ?" 
 
 " Och, thin, masther, he's from me goin' an fifteen years ; an' 
 a comrade of his was spakin' to Jim Dwyer, an' says his 
 ridgment's lyin' in the Island of Budanages, somewhere in the 
 back parts of Africa." 
 
 "An' is it a letther or petition you'd be afther havin' me to 
 indite for you, ma'am?" 
 
 "Och, a letther, sir a letther, masther; an' may the Loid 
 grant you all kinds of luck, good, bad, an' indifferent, both to 
 you an' yours ; an' well it's known, by the same token, that it's 
 yourself has the nice hand at the pen entirely, an' can indite a 
 letther or pertition that the priest o' the parish mightn't be 
 ashamed to own to it." 
 
 " Why, then, 'tis I that ud scorn to deteriorate upon the 
 superiminence of my own execution at inditin' wid a pen in my 
 hand ; but would you feel a delectability in my superscriptionisin'
 
 2 8 2 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 the epistolary correspondency, ma'am, that I'm about to 
 adopt?" 
 
 " Eagh ? och, what am I sayin' ! sir masther sir? the 
 noise of the crathurs, you see, is got into my ears ; and, besides, 
 I'm a bit bothered on both sides of my head ever since I had 
 that weary -weed." 
 
 " Silence, boys ; bad manners to yees, will ye be aisy, you 
 
 Lilliputian Boeotians by my s hem upon my credit, if I go 
 
 down to that corner I'll castigate yees in dozens ; I can't spake 
 to this dacent woman, with your insuperable turbulentiality." 
 
 "Ah, avourneen, masther, but the larnin's a fine thing, 
 anyhow ; an' maybe 'tis yourself that hasn't the tongue in your 
 head, an' can spake the tall, high-flown English ; a-wurrah, but 
 your tongue hangs well, anyhow the Lord incrase it ! " 
 
 " Lanty Cassidy, are you gettin' on wid yer Stereometry ? 
 festina, mi discipuli ; vocabo Homerum, mox atque max. You 
 see, ma'am, I must tache thim to spake an' effectuate a trans- 
 lation of the larned languages sometimes." 
 
 " Arrah, masther dear, how did you get it all into your head, 
 at all at all ? " 
 
 " Silence, boys face ' conticuere omnes intentique ora tene- 
 bant.' Silence, I say agin." 
 
 "You could slip over, maybe, to Doran's, masther, do you 
 see? You'd do it betther there, I'll engage. Sure an' you'd want 
 a dhrop to steady your hand, anyhow." 
 
 " Now, boys, I am goin' to indite a small taste of literal 
 correspondency over at the public-house here ; you literati will 
 hear the lessons for me, boys, till afther I'm back agin ; but 
 mind, boys, absente domino, strepuunt servi meditate on the 
 philosophy of that ; and, Mick Mahon, take your slate and put 
 down all the names; and, upon my sou hem credit, I'll 
 castigate any boy guilty of misty manners on my retrogadation 
 thither ; ergo momentote^ cave ne titubes mandataque fran^as" 
 
 " In throth, sir, I'd be long sarry to throuble you ; but he's 
 away fifteen years, and I wouldn't thrust it to another ; and the 
 corplar that commands the ridgment would regard your hand- 
 write and your inditin'." 
 
 " Don't, ma'am, plade the smallest taste of apology." 
 
 "Eagh?" 
 
 " I'm happy that I can sarve you, ma'am." 
 
 " Musha, long life to you, masther, for that same, anyhow 
 but it's yourself that's deep in the larnin' and the langridges ; 
 the Lord incrase yer knowledge sure, an' we all want his. 
 bjessin', you know."
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 283 
 
 THE RETURN. 
 
 " Well, boys, ye've been at it here's swelled faces and 
 bloody noses. What blackened your eye, Callaghan ? You're 
 a purty prime ministher, ye boxing blackguard, you. I left 
 you to keep pace among these factions, and you've kicked up 
 a purty dust. What blackened your eye egh ? " 
 " I'll tell you, sir, whin I come in, if you plase." 
 " Ho, you vagabones, this is the ould work of the faction 
 between the Bradys and the Callaghans bastin' one another ; 
 but, by my sowl, I'll baste you all through other. You don't 
 want to go out, Callaghan. You had fine work here since ; 
 there's a dead silence now ; but I'll pay you presently. Here, 
 Duggan, go out wid Callaghan, an' see that you bring him back 
 in less than no time. It's not enough for your fathers and 
 brothers to be at it, who have a right to fight, but you must 
 battle betune you have your field days itself 1 " 
 
 (Duggan returns) " Hoo hoo sir, my nose. Oh, tnurdher 
 sherry, my nose is broked 1 " 
 
 " Blow your nose, you spalpeen, you where's Callaghan ? " 
 " Oh, sir, bad luck to him every day he rises out of his bed ; 
 he got a stone in his fist, too, that he hot me a pelt on the nose 
 wid, and then made off home." 
 
 "Home, is id? Start, boys, off chase him, lie into him 
 asy, curse yees, take time gettin' out ; that's it keep to him 
 don't wait for me. Take care, you little spalpeens, or you'll 
 brake your bones, so you will. Blow the dust of this road, I 
 can't see my way in it ! " 
 
 " Oh ! murdher, Jim, agra, my knee's out of joint." 
 "My elbow's smashed, Paddy. Bad luck to him the divil 
 fly away wid him oh ! ha ! ha ! oh ! ha ! ha 1 murdher 
 hard fortune to me, but little Mickey Geery fell, an' thripped 
 the masther, an' himselfs disabled now his black breeches 
 split too look at him feelin' them oh ! oh ! ha ! ha ! by 
 tare-an'-outy, Callaghan will be murdhered if they cotch him." 
 
 This was a specimen of civilisation which Ireland only could 
 furnish ; nothing, indeed, could be more perfectly ludicrous 
 than such a chase ; and such scenes were by no means un- 
 common in hedge schools ; for wherever severe punishment 
 was dreaded and, in truth, most of the hedge-masters were 
 unfeeling tyrants the boy, if sufficiently grown to make a good 
 race, usually broke away, and fled home at the top of his speed. 
 The pack then were usually led on by the master, who mostly 
 headed them himself, all in full cry, exhibiting such a scene 33,
 
 284 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 should be witnessed in order to be enjoyed. The neighbours 
 men, women, and children ran out to be spectators ; the 
 labourers suspended their work to enjoy it, assembling on such 
 eminences as commanded a full view of the pursuit. 
 
 " Bravo, boys success, masther ; lie into him where's your 
 huntin'-horn, Mr. Kavanagh he'll bate yees, if ye don't take 
 the wind of him. Well done, Callaghan ; keep up your heart, 
 your sowl, and you'll do it asy yer gaining on them, ma 
 bouchal the masther's down, you gallows clip, an' there's none 
 but the scholars afther ye he's safe." 
 
 " Not he ; I'll hould a naggin, the poor scholar has him ; 
 don't you see he's close at his heels?" 
 
 " Done> by my song they'll never come up wid him ; listen 
 to their leather crackers and cord-a-roys, as their knees bang 
 agin one another. Hark forrit, boys 1 hark forrit ! huzzaw, you 
 thieves, huzzaw ! " 
 
 " Yer beagles is well winded, Mr. Kavanagh, an' gives good 
 tongue." 
 
 " Well, masther, you had your chase for nothin', I see." 
 
 " Mr. Kavanagh," another would observe, " I didn't think you 
 war so stiff in the hams as to let the gorsoon bate you that-a-way 
 your wind's failin', sir." 
 
 "The schoolmaster was abroad" then, and never was the 
 "march of intellect" at once so rapid and unsuccessful. 
 
 During the summer season it was the usual practice for the 
 scholars to transfer their paper, slates, and books to the green 
 which lay immediately behind the school-house, where they 
 stretched themselves on the grass, and resumed their business. 
 Mat would bring out his chair, and, placing it on the shady side 
 of the hedge, sit with his pipe in his mouth, the contented lord 
 of his little realm, whilst nearly a hundred and fifty scholars of 
 all sorts and sizes lay scattered over the grass, basking under 
 the scorching sun in all the luxury of novelty, nakedness, and 
 freedom. The sight was original and characteristic, and such 
 as Mr. Brougham would have been delighted with " The 
 schoolmaster was abroad again." 
 
 As soon as one o'clock drew near, Mat would pull out his 
 Ring-dial, holding it against the sun, and declare the hour. 
 
 " Now, boys, to yer dinners, and the rest to play." 
 
 " Hurroo, darlin's, to play the masther says it's dinner-time 1 
 whip-spur-an'-away-grey hurroo whack hurroo ! " 
 
 " Masther, sir, my father bid me ax you home to yer dinner." 
 
 " No; he'll come to huz come wid me, if you plase, sir." 
 
 " Sir, never heed thein ; my mother, sir, has some of what
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 285 
 
 you know of the flitch I brought to Shoneen on last Aisther, 
 sir." 
 
 This was a subject on which the boys gave themselves great 
 liberty an invitation, even when not accepted, being an indem- 
 nity for the day ; it was usually followed by a battle between the 
 claimants, and bloody noses were the issue. The master him- 
 self, after deciding to go where he was certain of getting the 
 best dinner, generally put an end to the quarrels by a reprimand, 
 and then gave notice to the disappointed claimants of the 
 successive days on which he would attend at their respective 
 houses. 
 
 "Boys, you all know my maxim to go, for fear of any 
 jealousies, boys, wherever I get the worst dinner ; so tell me 
 now, boys, what yer dacent mothers have all got at home for 
 me?" 
 
 " My mother killed a fat hen yestherday, sir, an' you'll have a 
 lump of bacon and ' flat dutch ' along wid it." 
 
 " We'll have hang beef and greens, sir." 
 
 " We tried the praties this mornin', sir, an' we'll have new 
 praties, an' bread an' butther, sir." 
 
 " Well, it's all good, boys ; but rather than show favour or 
 affection, do you see, I'll go wid Andy here, and take share of 
 the hen an' bacon ; but, boys, for all that, I'm fonder of the 
 other things, you persave ; and as I can't go wid you, Mat, tell 
 your respectable mother that I'll be with her to-morrow ; and 
 wid you, Larry, ma bouchal, the day afther." 
 
 If a master were a single man, he usually "went round" with 
 the scholars each night ; but there were generally a few com- 
 fortable farmers, leading men in the parish, at whose house he 
 chiefly resided ; and the children of these men were treated 
 with the grossest and most barefaced partiality. They were 
 altogether privileged persons, and had liberty to beat and abuse 
 the other children of the school, who were certain of being most 
 unmercifully flogged if they even dared to prefer a complaint 
 against the favourites. Indeed, the instances of atrocious 
 cruelty in hedge schools were almost incredible, and such as 
 in the present enlightened time would not be permitted. As to 
 the state of the "poor scholar," it exceeded belief; for he was 
 friendless and unprotected. But though legal prosecutions in 
 those days were never resorted to, yet, according to the 
 characteristic notions of the Irish retributive justice, certain 
 cases occurred in which a signal, and at times a fatal, ven- 
 geance was executed on the person of the brutal master. 
 Sometimes the brothers and other relatives of the mutilated 
 
 20
 
 286 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 child would come in a body to the school, and flog the 
 pedagogue with his own taws until his back was lapped in 
 blood. Sometimes they would beat him until few symptoms 
 of life remained. Occasionally he would get a nocturnal 
 notice to quit the parish in a given time, under a penalty 
 which seldom proved a dead letter in case of non-compliance. 
 Not unfrequently did those whom he had, when boys, treated 
 with such barbarity go back to him, when young men, not so 
 much for education's sake, as for the especial purpose of 
 retaliating upon him for his former cruelty. When cases of 
 this nature occurred, he found himself a mere cipher in his 
 school, never daring to practise excessive severity in their pres- 
 ence. Instances have come to our own knowledge of masters 
 who, for their mere amusement, would go out to the next 
 hedge, cut a large branch of furze or thorn, and having first 
 carefully arranged the children in a row round the walls of 
 the school, their naked legs stretched out before them, would 
 sweep round the branch, bristling with spikes and prickles, 
 with all their force against their limbs, until, in a few minutes, 
 a circle of blood was visible on the ground where they sat, 
 their legs appearing as if they had been scarified. This the 
 master did whenever he happened to be drunk or in a remark- 
 ably good humour. The poor children, however, were obliged 
 to laugh loud and enjoy it, though the tears were falling down 
 their cheeks in consequence of the pain he inflicted. To knock 
 down a child with the fist was considered nothing harsh ; nor, 
 if a boy were cut or prostrated by a blow of a cudgel on the 
 head, did he ever think of representing the master's cruelty to 
 his parents. Kicking on the shins with the point of a brogue 
 or shoe, bound round the edge of the sole with iron nails, until 
 the bone was laid open, was a common punishment ; and as for 
 the usual slapping, horsing, and flogging, they were inflicted 
 with a brutality that in every case richly deserved for the tyrant 
 not only a peculiar whipping by the hand of the common 
 executioner, but a separation from civilised society by trans- 
 portation for life. It is a fact, however, that in consequence 
 of the general severity practised in hedge schools, excesses 
 of punishment did not often produce retaliation against the 
 master ; these were only exceptions isolated cases that did not 
 affect the general character of the discipline in such schools. 
 
 Now, when we consider the total absence of all moral and 
 religious principles in these establishments, and the positive 
 presence of all that was wicked, cruel, and immoral, need we 
 be surprised at the character of Ireland at this enlightened
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL, 287 
 
 day ? But her education and herself were neglected, and now 
 behold the consequence ! 
 
 I am sorry to perceive the writings of many respectable 
 persons on Irish topics imbued with a tinge of spurious 
 liberality that frequently occasions them to depart from truth. 
 To draw the Irish character as it is, as the model of all that 
 is generous, hospitable, and magnanimous, is in some degree 
 fashionable ; but although I am as warm an admirer of all that 
 is really excellent and amiable in my countrymen as any man, 
 yet I cannot, nor will I, extenuate their weak and indefensible 
 points. That they possess the elements of a noble and exalted 
 national character, I grant ; nay, that they actually do possess 
 such a character, under limitations, I am ready to maintain. 
 Irishmen, setting aside their religious and political prejudices, 
 are grateful, affectionate, honourable, faithful, generous, and 
 even magnanimous ; but under the stimulus of religious and 
 political feeling they are treacherous, cruel, and inhuman will 
 murder, burn, and exterminate, not only without compunction, 
 but with a satanic delight worthy of a savage. Their education, 
 indeed, was truly barbarous ; they were trained and habituated 
 to cruelty, revenge, and personal hatred in their schools. Their 
 knowledge was directed to evil purposes ; disloyal principles 
 were industriously insinuated into their minds by their teachers, 
 every one of whom was a leader of some illegal association. 
 The matter placed in their hands was of a most inflammatory 
 and pernicious nature as regarded politics ; and as far as 
 religion and morality were concerned, nothing could be more 
 gross and superstitious than the books which circulated among 
 them. Eulogiums on murder, robbery, and theft were read with 
 delight in the histories of Freney the Robber, and the Irish 
 Rogues and Rapparees ; ridicule of the Word of God, and 
 hatred to the Protestant religion, in a book called Ward's 
 Cantos, written in Hudibrastic verse ; the downfall of the Pro- 
 testant Establishment, and the exaltation of the Romish Church, 
 in ColumbkilPs Prophecy, and latterly in that of Pastorini ; a 
 belief in every species of religious imposture, in the Lives of 
 the Saints, of St. Patrick, of St. Columbkill, of St. Teresa, St. 
 Francis Xavier, the Holy Scapular, and several other works, 
 disgraceful to human reason. Political and religious ballads of 
 the vilest doggerel, miraculous legends of holy friars persecuted 
 by Protestants, and of signal vengeance inflicted by the divine 
 power on their persecutors, were in the mouths of the young 
 and old, and of course firmly fixed in their credulity. 
 
 Their weapons of controversy were drawn from the Fifty
 
 288 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 Reasons, the Doleful Fall of Andrew Sail, the Catholic 
 Christian, the Grounds of the Catholic Doctrine, a Net for 
 the Fishers of Men, and several other publications of the same 
 class. The books of amusement read in these schools, includ- 
 ing the first mentioned in this list, were the Seven Champions 
 of Christendom, the Seven Wise Masters and Mistresses of 
 Rome, Don Belianis of Greece, the Royal Fairy Tales, the 
 Arabian Nights' Entertainments, Valentine and Orson, Gesta 
 Romanorum, Dorastus and Faunia, the History of Reynard the 
 Fox, the Chevalier Faublax ; to those I may add the Battle of 
 Aughrim, Siege of Londonderry, History of the Young Asca- 
 nius (a name by which the Pretender was designated), and the 
 Renowned History of the Siege of Troy ; the Forty Thieves, 
 Robin Hood's Garland, the Garden of Love and Royal Flower 
 of Fidelity, Parimus and Parismenus ; along with others, the 
 names of which shall not appear in these pages. With this 
 specimen of education before our eyes, is it at all extraordinary 
 that Ireland should be as she is ? 
 
 " Thady Bradly, will you come up wid your slate till I 
 examine you in your figures ? Go out, sir, and blow your nose 
 first, and don't be after making a looking-glass out of the sleeve 
 of your jacket. Now that Thady's out, I'll hould you, boys, that 
 none of yees know how to expound his name eh ? do yees ? 
 But I needn't ax well, 'tis Thadeus ; and maybe that's as 
 much as the priest that christened him knew. Boys, you see 
 what it is to have the larnin' to lade the life of a gintleman, 
 and to be able to talk deeply wid the clargy ! Now, I could 
 run down any man in arguin', except a priest ; and if the 
 bishop was afther consecratin' me, I'd have more larnin' than 
 the most of them ; but you see I'm not consecrated and well, 
 'tis no matther I only say that the more's the pity. 
 
 " Well, Thady, when did you go into subtraction ?" 
 
 " The day beyond yestherday, sir ; yarra musha, sure 'twas 
 yourself, sir, that shet me the first sum." 
 
 " Masther, sir, Thady Bradly stole my cutter that's my 
 cutter, Thady Bradly." 
 
 " No, it's not " (in a low voice). 
 
 " Sir, that's my cutter an' there's three nicks in id." 
 
 "Thady, is that his cutter?" 
 
 " There's your cutter for you. Sir, I found it on the flure, and 
 didn't know who own'd it." 
 
 " You know'd very well who own'd it ; didn't Dick Martin see 
 you liftin' it off o' my slate when I was out?" 
 
 " Well, if Dick Martin saw him, it's enough. An' 'tis Dick
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 289 
 
 that's the tindher-hearted boy, an' would knock you down wid a 
 lump of a stone if he saw you murtherin' but a fly ! 
 
 "Well, Thady throth, Thady, I fear you'll undherstand 
 subtraction better nor your tacher. I doubt you'll apply it to 
 ' Practice ' all your life, ma bouchal, and that you'll be apt to 
 find it 'the Rule of False' at last Well, Thady, from one 
 thousand pounds, no shillings, and no pince, how will you 
 subtract one pound ? Put it down on your slate this way 
 
 1000 oo oo 
 I oo oo.* 
 
 " I don't know how to shet about it, masther." 
 
 " You don't ? An" how dare you tell me so, you shingawn, 
 
 you you Cornelius Agrippa, you go to your sate and study it, 
 
 or I'll ha ! be off, you 
 
 " Pierce Mahon, come up wid your multiplication. Pierce, 
 
 multiply four hundred by two put it down that's it 
 
 400 
 By 2." 
 
 " Twice nought is one." (Whack, whack.) " Take that as 
 an illustration is that one ? " 
 
 "Faith, masther, that's two, anyhow; but, sir, is not wanst 
 nought nothin'? Now, masther, sure there can't be less than 
 nothinV 
 
 " Very good, sir." 
 
 " If wanst nought be nothin', then twice nought must be 
 something for it's double what wanst nought is see how I'm 
 sthruck for nothing an' me knows it hoo ! hoo ! hoo ! " 
 
 " Get put, you Esculapian ; bud I'll give you somethirt by- 
 and-by, jist to make you remimber that you know nothiri off 
 wid you to your sate, you spalpeen, you to tell me that there 
 can't be less than nothin', when it's well known that sporting 
 Squire O'Canter is worth a thousand pounds less than nothin'. 
 
 " Paddy Doran, come up to your ' Intherest.' Well, Paddy, 
 what's the intherest of a hundred pound at five per cent.? 
 Boys, have manners, you thieves, you." 
 
 "Do you mane, masther, per cent, per annum ?" 
 
 " To be sure I do how do you state it ? " 
 
 " I'll say, as a hundher pound is to one year, so is five pet 
 cent, per annum." 
 
 " Hum why what's the number of the sum, Paddy ? "
 
 290 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 " 'Tis No. 84, sir." (The master steals a glance at the Key 
 to Gough.) 
 
 " I only want to look at it in the Gough, you see, Paddy an' 
 how dare you give me such an answer, you big-headed dunce, 
 you go off an' study it, you rascally Lilliputian off wid you, 
 and don't let me see your ugly mug till you know it 
 
 " Now, gintlemen, for the Classics ; and first for the Latin- 
 aarians Larry Cassidy, come up wid your Asop. Larry, you're 
 a year at Latin, an' I don't think you know Latin forfrize, what 
 your own coat is made of, Larry. But, in the first place, Larry, 
 do you know what a man that laches Classics is called ?" 
 
 " A schoolmasther, sir." (Whack, whack, whack.) 
 
 " Take that for your ignorance and that to the back of it 
 ha ! that'll tache you to call a man that taches Classics a 
 schoolmasther, indeed ! 'Tis a Profissor of Humanity itself he 
 is (whack, whack, whack) ha ! you ringleader, you ; you're as 
 bad as Dick O'Connell, that no masther in the county could get 
 any good of, in regard that he put the whole school together by 
 the ears, wherever he'll be, though the spalpeen wouldn't stand 
 fight himself. Hard fortune to you 1 to go to put such an affront 
 upon me, an' me a Profissor of Humanity. What's Latin for 
 pantaloons ? " 
 
 ' Fem fern femi." 
 
 ' No, it's not, sir." 
 
 ' Femora " 
 
 ' Can you do it ? " 
 
 ' Don't strike me, sir ; don't strike me, sir, an' I will." 
 
 ' I say, can you do it ? " 
 
 ' Femorali (whack, whack, whack) Ah, sir ! ah, sir 1 'tis 
 femorali ah, sir ! 'tis femorali ah, sir ! " 
 
 " This thratement to a Profissor of Humanity." (Drives him 
 head over heels to his seat.) " Now, sir, maybe you'll have 
 Latin for throwsers agin, or, by my sowl, if you don't, you must 
 peel, and I'll tache you what a Profissor of Humanity is ! 
 
 " Dan Shiel, you little starved-looking spalpeen, will you 
 come up to your Illocution ? and a purty figure you cut at it, 
 wid a voice like a penny thrumpet, Dan ! Well, what speech 
 have you got now, Dan, ma bouchal. Is it ' Romans, counthry- 
 min, and lovers'?" 
 
 "No, shir; yarrah, didn't I spake that speech before? 'Tis 
 wan, masther, that I'm aStfizr pennen myself! " 
 
 " No, you didn't, you fairy. Ah, Dan, little as you are, you 
 take credit for more than ever you spoke, Dan, agrah; but, 
 faith, the same thrick will come agin you some time or other,
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 291 
 
 avick ! Go and get that speech betther ; I see by your face you 
 haven't it. Off wid you, and get a patch upon your breeches ; 
 your little knees are through them, though 'tisn't by prayin' 
 you've wore them, anyhow, you little hop-o'-my-thumb, you, wid 
 a voice like a rat in a thrap ; and yet you'll be practisin' illocu- 
 lion ; off wid you, man alive ! You little spitfire, you ; if you 
 and your schoolfellow, Dick O'Connell, had been wid the Jews 
 whin they wanted to burn down the standin' corn of the 
 Philistins, the divil a fox they might bother their heads about, 
 for yees both would have carried firebrands by the hundher for 
 them. Spake the next speech bitther between you and Dick, 
 you keep the school in perpetual agitation." 
 
 Sometimes the neighbouring gentry used to call into Mat's 
 establishment, moved probably by a curiosity excited by his 
 character and the general conduct of the school. On one 
 occasion Squire Johnston and an English gentleman paid him 
 rather an unexpected visit. Mat had that morning got a new 
 scholar, the son of a dancing tailor in the neighbourhood ; and 
 as it was reported that the son was nearly equal to the father in 
 that accomplishment, Mat insisted on having a specimen of his 
 skill. He was the more anxious on this point, as it would 
 contribute to the amusement of a travelling schoolmaster, 
 who had paid him rather a hostile visit, which Mat, who 
 dreaded a literary challenge, feared might occasion him some 
 trouble. 
 
 " Come up here, you little sartor, till we get a dacent view of 
 you. You're a son of Ned Malone's aren't you ?" 
 
 ' Yes, and of Mary Malone, my mother, too, sir." 
 
 'Why, thin, that's not bad, anyhow what's your name?" 
 
 ' Dick, sir." 
 
 1 Now, Dick, ma bouchal, isn't it true that you can dance a 
 hornpipe ?" 
 
 'Yes, sir." 
 
 ' Here, Larry Brady, take the door off the hinges, an' lay it 
 down on the flure, till Dick Malone dances the Humours of 
 Glynn. Silence, boys, not a word ; but jist keep lookin' an." 
 
 "Who'll sing, sir? for I can't be afther dancin' a step widout 
 the music." 
 
 " Boys, which of yees '11 sing for Dick ? I say, boys, will 
 none of yees give Dick the harmony ? Well, come, Dick, I'll 
 sing for you myself 
 
 " ' Torral lol, lorral lol, lorral lol, lorral lol 
 Toldherol, lorral lol, lorral lol, lal,' " etc., etc.
 
 29* THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 " I say, Misther Kavanagh," said the strange master, " what 
 angle does Dick's heel form in the second step of the treble, 
 from the kibe on the left foot to the corner of the door forninst 
 him?" 
 
 To this mathematical poser Mat made no reply, only sang the 
 tune with redoubled loudness and strength, whilst little Dicky 
 pounded the old crazy door with all his skill and alacrity. The 
 "boys" were delighted. 
 
 " Bravo, Dick, that's a man welt the fluie cut the buckle 
 murdher the clocks rise upon suggaun, and sink upon gad 
 down the flure flat, foot about keep one foot on the ground, 
 and t'other never off it," saluted him from all parts of the house. 
 
 Sometimes he would receive a sly hint, in a feigned voice, 
 to call for " Devil stick the Fiddler," alluding to the master. 
 Now a squeaking voice would chime in ; by-and-by another, 
 and so on, until the master's bass had a hundred and forty 
 trebles, all in chorus, to the same tune. 
 
 Just at this moment the two gentlemen entered ; and, reader, 
 you may conceive, but 1 cannot describe, the face which Mat 
 (who sat with his back to the door, and did not see them until 
 they were some time in the house) exhibited on the occasion. 
 There he sung ore rotunda, throwing forth an astounding tide 
 of voice; whilst little Dick, a thin, pale-faced urchin, with his 
 head, from which the hair stood erect, sunk between his hollow 
 shoulders, was performing prodigious feats of agility. 
 
 "What's the matter? what's the matter?" said the gentle- 
 men. " Good morning, Mr. Kavanagh." 
 
 -Torral lol, lol- 
 
 Oh, good oh, good morning gintlemen, with extrame 
 
 kindness," replied Mat, rising suddenly up, but not removing 
 his hat, although the gentlemen instantly uncovered. 
 
 " Why, thin, gintlemen," he continued, " you have caught us 
 in our little relaxations to-day ; but hem ! I mane to give the 
 boys a holiday for the sake of this honest and respectable 
 gintleman in the frieze jock, who is not entirely ignorant, you 
 persave, of litherature ; and we had a small taste, gintlemen, 
 among ourselves, of Sathurnalian licentiousness, ut ita dicam, 
 in regard of hem 1 in regard of this lad here, who was danc- 
 ing a hornpipe upon the door, and we, in absence of betther 
 music, had to supply him with the harmony ; but, as your 
 honours know, gintlemen, the greatest men have bent them- 
 selves on espacial occasions."
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 293 
 
 " Make no apology, Mr. Kavanagh ; it's very commendable 
 in you to bend yourself by condescending to amuse your 
 pupils." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Squire, I can take freedoms with you ; 
 but perhaps the concomitant gintleman, your friend here, would 
 be plased to take my stool. Indeed, I always use a chair, but 
 the back of it, if I may be permitted the use of a small portion 
 of jocularity, was as frail as the fair sect ; it went home yister- 
 day to be minded. Do, sir, condescind to be sated. Upon my 
 reputation, Squire, I'm sorry that I have not accommodation 
 for you too, sir ; except one of these hassocks, which, in joint 
 considheration with the length of your honour's legs, would be, 
 I anticipate, rather low ; but you, sir, will honour me by taking 
 the stool." 
 
 By considerable importunity he forced the gentleman to 
 comply with his courtesy ; but no sooner had he fixed himself 
 upon the seat than it overturned, and stretched him, black coat 
 and all, across a wide concavity in the floor, nearly filled up 
 with white ashes produced from mountain turf. In a moment 
 he was completely white on one side, and exhibited a most 
 laughable appearance ; his hat, too, was scorched and nearly 
 burned on the turf coals. Squire Johnston laughed heartily, as 
 did the other schoolmaster, whilst the Englishman completely 
 lost his temper swearing that so uncivilised an establishment 
 was not between the poles. 
 
 " I solemnly supplicate upwards of fifty pardons," said Mat ; 
 " bad manners to it for a stool ! but, your honour, it was my 
 own defect of speculation, bekase, you see, it's minus a leg 
 a circumstance of which you warn't in a proper capacity to 
 take cognation, as not being personally acquainted with it. I 
 humbly supplicate upwards of fifty pardons." 
 
 The Englishman was now nettled, and determined to wreak 
 his ill-temper on Mat by turning him and his establishment into 
 ridicule. 
 
 " Isn't this, Mister ; I forget your name, sir." 
 
 " Mat Kavanagh, at your sarvice." 
 
 " Very well, my learned friend, Mr. Mat Kavanagh, isn't this 
 precisely what is called a hedge school f" 
 
 " A hedge school ! " replied Mat, highly offended ; " my 
 siminary a hedge school 1 No, sir ; I scorn the cognomen, in 
 toto. This, sir, is a Classical and Mathematical Siminary, 
 under the personal superintendence of your humble servant." 
 
 " Sir," replied the other master, who till then was silent, 
 wishing perhaps to sack Mat in presence of the gentlemen, 
 
 20*
 
 294 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 " it is a hedge school ; and he is no scholar, but an ignoramus, 
 whom I'd sack in three minutes, that would be ashamed of a 
 hedge school." 
 
 " Ay," says Mat, changing his tone, and taking the cue from 
 his friend, whose learning he dreaded, " it's jist, for argument's 
 sake, a hedge school ; and, what is more, I scorn to be ashamed 
 of it." 
 
 " And do you not teach occasionally under the hedge behind 
 the house here ? " 
 
 " Granted," replied Mat ; " and now, where's your vis conse- 
 quentitz?" 
 
 "Yes," subjoined the other, "produce your vis consequential 
 
 The Englishman himself was rather at a loss for the vis 
 consequently and replied. " Why don't you live, and learn, and 
 teach like civilised beings, and not assemble like wild asses 
 pardon me, my friend, for the simile at least, like wild colts, in 
 such clusters behind the ditches ?" 
 
 "A clustherof wild coults !" said Mat ; "that shows what you 
 are ; no man of classical larnin' would use such a word." 
 
 " Permit me, sir," replied the strange master, " to ax your 
 honour one question did you receive a classical education ? 
 Are you college-bred ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied the Englishman ; " I can reply to both in the 
 affirmative. I'm a Cantabrigian." 
 
 " You're a what*" asked Mat. 
 
 " I am a Cantabrigian." 
 
 " Come, sir, you must explain yourself, if you plase. I'll 
 take my oath that's neither a classical nor a mathematical 
 tarm." 
 
 The gentleman smiled. " I was educated in the English 
 College of Cambridge." 
 
 " Well," says Mat, " and maybe you would be as well off if 
 you had picked up your larnin' in our own Thrinity ; there's 
 good picking in Thrinity for gintlemen like you, that are sober 
 and harmless about the brains, in regard of not being overly 
 bright." 
 
 " You talk with contempt of a hedge school," replied the 
 other master. " Did you never hear, for all so long as you war 
 in Cambridge, of a nate little spot in Greece, called the Groves 
 of Academus ? 
 
 " 'Inter lucos Academi, quaerere verum.' 
 What was Plato himself but a hedge schoolmaster ? and, with
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 295 
 
 humble submission, it casts no slur on an Irish tacher to be 
 compared to him, I think. You forget, also, sir, that the 
 Dhruids taught under their oaks." 
 
 "Ay," added Mat, "and the Tree of Knowledge, too. Faith, 
 an' if that same tree was now in being, if there wouldn't be 
 hedge schoolmasters, there would be plinty of hedge scholars, 
 anyhow particularly if the fruit was well tasted." 
 
 " I believe, Millbank, you must give in," said Squire Johnston. 
 " I think you have got the worst of it" 
 
 " Why," said Mat, "if the gintleman's not afther bein' sacked 
 clane, I'm not here." 
 
 "Are you a mathematician?" inquired Mat's friend, deter- 
 mined to follow up his victory ; "do you know Mensuration ?" 
 
 " Come, I do know Mensuration," said the Englishman, with 
 confidence. 
 
 "And how would you find the solid contents of a load of 
 thorns?" said the other. 
 
 " Ay, or how will you consther and parse me this sintince ? " 
 said Mat : 
 
 " * Regibus et clotibus solemus stopere windous, 
 Nos numerus sumus fruges consumere nati, 
 Stercora flat stire rara terra-tantaro bungo.' " 
 
 "Aisy, Misther Kavanagh," replied the other ; "let the Canta- 
 brigian resolve the one I propounded him first." 
 
 " And let the Cantabrigian then take up mine," said Mat ; 
 " and if he can expound it I'll give him a dozen more to bring 
 home in his pocket, for the Cambridge folk to crack after their 
 dinner along wid their nuts." 
 
 "Can you do the 'Snail'?" inquired the stranger. 
 
 "Or 'A and B on opposite sides of a wood,' widout the 
 Key? "said Mat. 
 
 " Maybe," said the stranger, who threw off the frieze jock, 
 and exhibited a muscular frame of great power, cased in an old 
 black coat "maybe the gintleman would like to get a small 
 taste of the ' Scuffle? '' 
 
 " Not at all," replied the Englishman ; " devil the least 
 curiosity I have for it I assure you I have not. What the 
 deuce do they mean, Johnston ? I hope you have influence 
 over them." 
 
 " Hand me down that cudgel, Jack Brady, till I show the 
 gintleman the ' Snail ' and the ' Maypole,' " said Mat. 
 
 " Never mind, my lad ; never mind. Mr. a Mr.
 
 296 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 Kavanagh. I give up the contest I resign you the palm, 
 gentlemen. The hedge school has beaten Cambridge hollow." 
 
 " One poser more, before you go, sir," said Mat. " Can you 
 give Latin for & game egg in two words ?" 
 
 "Eh, a game egg? No, by my honour I cannot gentlemen, 
 I yield." 
 
 " Ay, I thought so," replied Mat ; " bring it home to Cam- 
 bridge, anyhow, and let them chew their cuds upon it, you 
 persave ; and, by the sowl of Newton, it will puzzle the whole 
 establishment, or my name's not Kavanagh." 
 
 " It will, I am convinced," replied the gentleman, eyeing the 
 herculean frame of the strange teacher, and the substantial 
 cudgel in Mat's hand ; " it will, undoubtedly. But who is this 
 most miserable naked lad here, Mr. Kavanagh ?" 
 
 " Why, sir," replied Mat, with his broad Milesian face 
 expanding with a forthcoming joke, " he is, sir, in a sartin 
 and especial particularity, a namesake of your own." 
 
 " How is that, Mr. Kevanagh ?" 
 
 " My name's not Kevanagh," replied Mat, " but Kavanagh ; 
 the Irish A for ever ! " 
 
 "Well, but how is the lad a namesake of mine?" said the 
 Englishman. 
 
 " Bekase, you see, he's a poor scholar, sir," replied Mat ; " an' 
 hope your honour will pardon me for the facetiousness 
 
 " ' Quid vetat ridentem dicere verum ? ' 
 
 as Horace says to Maecenas on the first of the Sathirs ! " 
 
 " There, Mr. Kavanagh, is the price of a suit of clothes for 
 him." 
 
 " Michael, will you rise up, sir, and make the gintleman a 
 bow ? he has given you the price of a shoot of clothes, ma 
 bouchal." 
 
 Michael came up with a thousand rags dangling about him ; 
 and, catching his forelock, bobbed down his head after the 
 usual manner, saying, " Musha yarrah, long life to your honour 
 every day you rise, an' the Lord grant your sowl a short stay 
 in purgatory, wishin' ye, at the same time, a happy death 
 aftherwards !" , 
 
 The gentlemen could not stand this, but laughed so heartily 
 that the argument was fairly knocked up. 
 
 It appeared, however, that Squire Johnston did not visit 
 Mat's school from mere curiosity. 
 
 " Mr. Kavanagh," said he, " I would be glad to have a little
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 297 
 
 private conversation with you, and will thank you to walk down 
 the road a little with this gentleman and me." 
 
 When the gentlemen and Mat had gone ten or fifteen yards 
 from the school door, the Englishman heard himself con- 
 gratulated in the following phrases : 
 
 " How do you feel afther bein' sacked, gintleman ? The 
 masther sacked you ! You're a purty scholar ! It's not you, 
 Mr. Johnston ; it's the other. You'll come to argue agin, will 
 you ? Where's your head now ? Bah ! Come back till we 
 put the soogaun 1 about your neck. Bah ! You must go to 
 school to Cam-bridge agin, before you can argue an Irisher ! 
 Look at the figure he cuts ! Why duv ye put the one foot past 
 the other, when ye walk, for? Bah ! Dunce 1 ! " 
 
 " Well, boys, never heed yees for that," shouted Mat ; "never 
 fear but I'll castigate yees, ye spalpeen villains, as soon as I go 
 back. Sir," said Mat, " I supplicate upwards of fifty pardons. 
 I assure you, sir, I'll give them a most inordinate castigation for 
 their want of respectability." 
 
 " What's the Greek for tobaccy ? " they continued, " or for 
 Larry O'Toole? or for bletherum skite? How many beans make 
 five ? What's Latin for poteen and flummery ? You a mathe- 
 mathitician ! Could you measure a snail's horn ? How does 
 your hat stay up and nothing undher it ? Will you fight Barny 
 Farrell wid one hand tied? I'd lick you myself! What's 
 Greek for gosther ? " with many other expressions of a similar 
 stamp. 
 
 " Sir," said Mat, " lave the justice of this in my hands. By 
 the sowl of Newton, your own counthryman, ould Isaac, I'll flog 
 the marrow out of them." . 
 
 "You have heard, Mr. Kavanagh," continued Mr. Johnston, 
 as they went along, "of the burning of Moore's stables and 
 horses the night before last. The fact is that the magistrates 
 of the county are endeavouring to get the incendiaries, and 
 would render a service to any person capable, either directly or 
 indirectly, of facilitating that object, or stumbling on a clue to 
 the transaction." 
 
 "And how could I do you a sarvice in it, sir?" inquired 
 Mat. 
 
 "Why," replied Mr. Johnston, "from the children. If you 
 could sift them in an indirect way, so as, without suspicion, 
 
 1 The soogaun was a collar of straw which was put round the necks 
 of the dunces, who were then placed at the door, that their disgrace 
 might be as public as possible.
 
 298 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 to ascertain the absence of a brother or so on that particular 
 night, I might have it in my power to serve you, Mr. Kavanagh. 
 There will be a large reward offered to-morrow, besides." 
 
 " Oh, damn the penny of the reward ever I'd finger, even 
 if I knew the whole conflagration," said Mat ; " but lave the 
 siftin' of the children wid myself, and if I can get anything out 
 of them, you'll hear from me; but your honour must keep a close 
 mouth, or you might have occasion to lend me the money for my 
 own funeral some o' these days. Good morning, gintlemen." 
 
 The gentlemen departed. 
 
 " May the most ornamental kind of hard fortune pursue you 
 every day you rise, you desavin' villain, that would have me 
 turn informer, bekase your brother-in-law, rack-rintin' Moore's 
 stable and horses were burnt ; but I'd see you and all your 
 breed in the flames o' hell first." Such was Mat's soliloquy as 
 he entered the school on his return. 
 
 " Now, boys, I'm afther giving yees to-day and to-morrow for 
 a holiday. To-morrow we will have our Gregory : a fine faste, 
 plinty of poteen, and a fiddle ; and you will tell your brothers 
 and sisters to come in the evening to the dance. You must 
 bring plinty of bacon, hung beef, and fowls, bread and cabbage 
 not forgetting the phaties, and sixpence a head for the craihur, 
 boys, won't yees?" 
 
 The next day, of course, was one of festivity; every boy 
 brought, in fact, as much as would serve six ; but the surplus 
 gave Mat some good dinners for three months to come. This 
 feast was always held upon St. Gregory's day, from which cir- 
 cumstance it had its name. The pupils were at liberty, for that 
 day, to conduct themselves as they pleased; and the con- 
 sequence was t"hat they became generally intoxicated, and were 
 brought home in that state to their parents. If the children of 
 two opposite parties chanced to be at the same school, they 
 usually had a fight, of which the master was compelled to feign 
 ignorance; for if he identified himself with either faction, his 
 residence in the neighbourhood would be short. In other dis- 
 tricts, where Protestant schools were in existence, a battle-royal 
 commonly took place between the opposite establishments, in 
 some field lying half-way between them. This has often 
 occurred. 
 
 Every one must necessarily be acquainted with the ceremony 
 of barring out. This took place at Easter and Christmas. The 
 master was brought or sent out on some fool's errand, the door 
 shut and barricaded, and the pedagogue excluded until a certain 
 term of vacation was extorted. With this, however, the master
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL, 299 
 
 never complied until all his efforts at forcing an entrance were 
 found to be ineffectual ; because, if he succeeded in getting in, 
 they not only had no claim to a long vacation, but were liable 
 to be corrected. The schoolmaster had also generally the 
 clerkship of the parish ; an office, however, which, in the country 
 parts of Ireland, is without any kind of salary beyond what 
 results from the patronage of the priest a matter of serious 
 moment to a teacher, who, should he incur his reverence's dis- 
 pleasure, would be immediately driven out of the parish. The 
 master, therefore, was always tyrannical and insolent to the 
 people in proportion as he stood high in the estimation of the 
 priest. He was also the master of ceremonies at all wakes and 
 funerals, and usually sat among a crowd of the village sages, 
 engaged in exhibiting his own learning, and in recounting the 
 number of his religious and literary disputations. 
 
 One day, soon after the visit of the gentlemen above men- 
 tioned, two strange men came into Mat's establishment rather, 
 as Mat thought, in an unceremonious manner. 
 
 "Is your name Matthew Kavanagh?" said one of them. 
 
 "That is indeed the name that's upon me," said Mat, with 
 rather an infirm voice, whilst his face got pale as ashes. 
 
 " Well," said the fellow, " we'll jist trouble you to walk with 
 us a bit" 
 
 " How far, with submission, are yees goin' to bring me?" said 
 Mat 
 
 "Do you know Johnny Short's hotel?" 1 
 
 " My curse upon you, Findramore," exclaimed Mat, in a 
 paroxysm of anguish, "every day you rise! but your breath's 
 unlucky to a schoolmasther; and it's no lie what was often 
 said, that no schoolmasther ever thruv in you, but something 
 ill came over him." 
 
 "Don't curse the town, man alive," said the constable, "but 
 curse your own ignorance and folly. Anyway, I wouldn't stand 
 in your coat for the wealth of the three kingdoms. You'll 
 undoubtedly swing, unless you turn king's evidence. It's about 
 Moore's business, Mr. Kavanagh." 
 
 " Dang the that I'd do, even if I knew anything about it ; 
 but, God be praised for it, I can set them all at defiance that 
 I'm sure of. Gintlemen, innocence is a jewel." 
 
 " But Barny Brady, that keeps the shebeen house you know 
 him is of another opinion. You and some of the Findramore 
 boys took a sup in Barny's on a sartin night?" 
 
 1 The county gaol.
 
 300 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 " Ay, did we, on many a night, and will agin, plase Provi- 
 dence no harm in takin' a sup, anyhow by the same token, 
 that maybe you and yer friend here would have a drop of rale 
 stuff, as a thrate from me ? " 
 
 " I know a thrick worth two of that," said the man. " I 
 thank ye kindly, Mr. Kavanagh." 
 
 One Tuesday morning, about six weeks after this event, the 
 largest crowd ever remembered in that neighbourhood was 
 assembled at Findramore Hill, whereon had been erected a 
 certain wooden machine yclept a gallows. A little after the 
 hour of eleven o'clock two carts were descried winding slowly 
 down a slope on the southern side of the town and church, 
 which I have already mentioned as terminating the view along 
 the level road north of the hill. As soon as they were ob- 
 served, a low, suppressed ejaculation of horror ran through the 
 crowd, painfully perceptible to the ear in the expression of ten 
 thousand murmurs all blending into one deep groan and to 
 the eye, by a simultaneous motion that ran through the crowd 
 like an electric shock. The place of execution was surrounded 
 by a strong detachment of military ; and the carts that conveyed 
 the convicts were also strongly guarded. 
 
 As the prisoners approached the fatal spot, which was within 
 sight of the place where the outrage had been perpetrated, the 
 shrieks and lamentations of their relations and acquaintances 
 were appalling indeed. Fathers, mothers, sisters, brotheis, 
 cousins, and all persons to the most remote degree of kindred 
 and acquaintanceship, were present all excited by the alter- 
 nate expression of grief and low-breathed vows of retaliation ; 
 not only relations, but all who were connected with them by 
 the bonds of their desperate and illegal oaths. Every eye, 
 in fact, corruscated with a wild and savage fire that shot from 
 under brows knit in a spirit that seemed to cry out blood, 
 vengeance blood, vengeance. The expression was truly awful, 
 and what rendered it more terrific was the writhing reflection 
 that numbers and physical force were unavailing against a 
 comparatively small body of armed troops. This condensed 
 the fiery impulse of the moment into an expression of subdued 
 rage that really shot like livid gleams from their visages. 
 
 At length the carts stopped undei the gallows ; and, after a 
 short interval spent in devotional exercise, three of the culprits 
 ascended the platform, who, after recommending themselves 
 to God, and avowing their innocence, although the clearest 
 possible evidence of guilt had been brought against them, were 
 launched into another life, among the shrieks and groans of the
 
 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 301 
 
 multitude. The other three then ascended ; two of them either 
 declined or had not strength to address the assembly. The 
 third advanced to the edge of the boards // was Mat, After 
 two or three efforts to speak, in which he was unsuccessful from 
 bodily weakness, he at length addressed them as follows : 
 
 " My friends and good people, In hopes that you may be all 
 able to demonstrate the last proposition laid down by a dying 
 man, I undertake to address you before I depart to that world 
 where Euclid, De Carts, and many other larned men are gone 
 before me. There is nothing in all philosophy more true than 
 that, as the multiplication fable says, 'two and two makes four'; 
 but it is equally veracious and worthy of credit that if you do 
 not abnegate this system that you work the common rules of 
 your proceedings by if you don't become loyal men, and give 
 up burnin' and murdherin', the solution of it will be found on 
 the gallows. I acknowledge myself to be guilty, for not 
 separatin' myself clane from yees ; we have been all guilty, and 
 may God forgive thim that jist now departed wid a lie in their 
 mouth." 
 
 Here he was interrupted by a volley of execrations and 
 curses, mingled with "stag," "informer," "thraithor to the 
 thrue cause!" which, for some time, compelled him to be 
 silent. 
 
 " You may curse," continued Mat ; " but it's too late now to 
 abscond the truth the 'sum' of my wickedness and folly is 
 worked out, and you see the ' answer? God forgive me, many 
 a young crathur I enticed into the Ribbon business, and now it's 
 to ind in Hemp.' Obey the law ; or, if you don't, you'll find it 
 a lex talionis the construction of which is, that if a man burns 
 or murdhers, he won't miss hanging ; take warning by me by 
 us all ; for, although I take God to witness that I was not at 
 the perpetration of the crime that I'm to be suspinded for, yet I 
 often connived, when I might have superseded the carrying of 
 such Sntintions into effectuality. I die in pace wid all the 
 world, save an' except the Findramore people, whom may the 
 maledictionary execration of a dying man follow into eternal 
 
 infinity ! My manuscription of conic sections " Here an 
 
 extraordinary buzz commenced among the crowd, which rose 
 gradually into a shout of wild, astounding exultation. The 
 sheriff followed the eyes of the multitude, and perceived a 
 horseman dashing with breathless fury up towards the scene of 
 execution. He carried and waved a white handkerchief on the 
 end of a rod, and made signals with his hat to stop the execu- 
 tion. He arrived and brought a full pardon for Mat, and a
 
 302 THE HEDGE SCHOOL. 
 
 commutation of sentence to transportation for life for the other 
 two. What became of Mat I know not ; but in Findramore he 
 never dared to appear, as certain death would have been the 
 consequence of his not dying game. With respect to Bavny 
 Brady, who kept the shebeen, and was the principal evidence 
 against those who were concerned in this outrage, he was com- 
 pelled to enact an extempore death in less than a month 
 afterwards, having been found dead, with a slip of paper in 
 his mouth inscribed, " This is the fate of all Informers? 
 
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