Chapter III: Part 3

“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 soul--hem--credit, I'll castigate any boy guilty of _misty mannes_ on my retrogadation thither;--_ergo momentote, cave ne titubes mandataque frangas_.”

“Blood alive, masther, but that's great spakin'--begar, a judge couldn't come up to you; but in throth, sir, I'd be long sarry to throuble you; only he's away fifteen year, and I wouldn't thrust it to another; and the corplar that commands the ridgment would regard your handwrite 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, any how--but it's yourself that's deep in the larnin' and the langridges; the Lord incrase yer knowledge--sure, an' we all want his blessin', you know.”

“Home, is id? Start, boys, off--chase him, lie into him--asy, curse yez, 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.”

THE RETURN.

“Well, boys, you'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--eh?--”

“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, and 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!”

(Duggan returns)--“Hoo--hoo--sir, my nose. Oh, murdher sheery, my nose is broked!”

“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--azy, curse yez, take time gettin out; that's it--keep to him--don't wait for me; take care you little salpeens 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, Jem, agra, my knee's out' o' joint.”

“My elbow's smashed, Paddy. Bad luck to him--the devil fly away wid him--oh! ha I ha!--oh! ha! ha! murdher--hard fortune to me, but little Mickey Geery fell, an' thripped the masther, an' himself's, disabled now--his black breeches split too--look at him feelin' them--oh! oh! ha! ha!--by tare-an'-onty, Callaghan will be murdhered, if they cotch him.”

This was a specimen of scholastic civilization which Ireland only could furnish; nothing, indeed, could be more perfectly ludicrous than such a chase; and such scenes were by no means uncommon 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 as should be witnessed in order to be enjoyed. The neighbors, men, women, and children, ran out to be spectators; the laborers 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 yez if ye don't take the wind of him. Well done, Callaghan, keep up yer heart, yer sowl, and you'll do it asy--you're 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, boy's; hark forrit! huz-zaw, you thieves, huzzaw!”

“Your beagles is well winded, Mr. Kava-nagh, and 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 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 Lord 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.

* The Ring-dial was the hedge-schoolmaster's next best substitute for a watch. As it is possible that a great number of our readers may never have heard of, much less seen one, we shall in a word or two describe it--nothing could indeed be more simple. It was a bright brass ring, about three-quarters of an inch broad, and two and a half in diameter. There was a small hole in it, which when held opposite the sun admitted the light against the inside of the ring behind. On this was marked the hours and the quarters, and the time was known by observing the number or the quarter on which the slender ray that came in from the hole in front fell.

“Now, boys, to yer dinners, and the rest to play.”

“Hurroo, darlins, to play--the masther says it's dinner-time!--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 them; my mother, sir, has some of what 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 indemnity for the day; it was usually followed by a battle between the claimants, and bloody noses sometimes were the issue. The master himself, 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 yesterday, sir, and you'll have a lump of bacon and flat dutch along wid it.”

“We'll have hung beef and greens, sir.”

“We tried the praties this mornin', sir, and we'll have new praties, and bread and butther, sir.”

“Well, it's all good, boys; but rather than show favor 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 with 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 comfortable 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 favorites. 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 Irish retributive justice, certain cases occurred, in which a signal, and at times, a fatal vengeance was executed on the person of the brutal master. Sometimes the brothers and other relatives of the mutilated 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 presence. 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 on 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 his 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 remarkably good humor. 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 a 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 civilized society by transportation 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 that occasional crimes of a dark and cruel character should be perpetrated? The truth is, that it is difficult to determine, whether unlettered ignorance itself were not preferable to the kind of education which the people then received.

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, honorable, 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, most of whom were leaders of illegal associations. 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 or 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 Hudi-brastic verse; the downfall of the Protestant Establishment, and the exaltation of the Romish Church, in Columbkill's Prophecy, and latterly in that of Pastorini. Gross superstitions, political and religious ballads of the vilest doggerel, miraculous legends of holy friars persecuted by Protestants, and of signal vengeance inflicted by their divine power on those who persecuted them, 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 Reasons, the Doleful Fall of Andrew Sail, the Catholic Christian, the Grounds of 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, including 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 these I may add, the Battle of Auhrim, Siege of Londonderry, History of the Young Ascanius, 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, Parismus and Parismenos; along with others, the names of which shall not appear on these pages. With this specimen of education before our eyes, is it not extraordinary that the people of Ireland should be in general, so moral and civilized a people as they are?

“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 yez knows how to expound his name--eh? do ye? But I needn't ax--well, 'tis Thaddeus; 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 after consecratin' me, I'd have as much larnin' as some 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 yesterday, 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 that's the tindher-hearted boy, an' would knock, you down wid a lump of a stone, if he saw you murdherin' but a fly!”

“We'll, Thady--throth Thady, I fear you'll undherstand subtraction better nor your teacher: 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,

The name of a 'Rule' in Gough's Arithmetic.

1000 00 00

1 00 00”

“I don't know how to shet about it, masther.”

“You don't, an' how dare you tell me so you _shingaun_ you--you Cornelius Agrippa you--go to your sate and study it, or I'll--ha! be off, you.”--

“Pierce Butler, 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, any how: but, sir, is not wanst nought nothin'; now masher, sure there can't be less than nothin'.”

“Very good, sir.”

“If wanst nought be nothin', then twice nought must be somethin', for it's double what wanst nought is--see how I'm sthruck for nothin', an' me knows it--hoo! hoo! hoo!

“Get out, you Esculapian; but I'll give you _somethin_', by-and-by, just to make you remimber that you know _nothin_'--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 Squaire O'Canter's 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 per cent, per annum.”

“Hum--why what's the number of the sum Paddy?”

“'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 Latinaarians--Larry Cassidy, come up wid your Aisop. Larry you're a year at Latin, an' I don't think you know Latin for frize, what your own coat is made of, Larry. But, in the first place, Larry, do you know what a man that taiches Classics is called?”

“A schoolmasther, sir.” (Whack, whack, whack.).

“Take that for your ignorance--and that to the back of it--ha; that'll taiche you--to call a man that taiches Classics a schoolmaster, indeed! 'Tis a Profissor of Humanity itself, he is--(whack, whack, whack,)--ha! you ringleader, you; you're as bad as Dick M'Growler, 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'd be, though the spalpeen wouldn't stand fight himself. Hard fortune to you! to go to put such an affront upon me, an' me a Profissor of Humanity. What's Latin for pantaloons?”

“Fern--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! 'tis fermorali--ah, sir! 'tis fermorali--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 Roe, you little starved-looking spalpeen, will you come up to your Elocution?--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, counthrymin, and lovers?'”

“No, shir; yarrah, didn't I spake that speech before?”

“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, 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, any how, you little hop-o'-my-thumb you, wid a voice like a rat in a thrap; off wid you, man alive!”

Sometimes the neighboring 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 neighborhood; 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 so bad, any how--what's your name?”

“Dick, sir.”

“Now, Dick, ma bouchal, isn't it true that you can dance a horn-pipe?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Here, Larry Brady, take the door off the hinges, an' lay it down on the flure, till Dick Malone dances the _Humors of Glynn_: silence, boys, not a word; but just keep lookin' an.”

“Who'll sing, sir? for I can't be afther dancin' a step widout the music.”

“Boys, which of yez'll sing for Dick? I say, boys, will none of yez give Dick the Harmony? Well, come, Dick, I'll sing for you myself:

“Tooral lol, lorral lol, lorral lol, lorral, lol--
Toldherol, lorral lol, lorral lol, lol,” etc., etc.

“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 flure--cut the buckle--murder 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 altered; and, reader, you may conceive, but I 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 rotundo, throwing forth an astonishing 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 gentlemen. “Good morning, Mr. Kavanagh!”

----Tooral 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 frize 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!--in regard of this lad here, who was dancing a hornpipe upon the door, and we, in absence of betther music, had to supply him with the harmony; but, as your honors know, gintlemen, the greatest men have bent themselves on espacial occasions.”

“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 gentleman, your friend here, would be pleased 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 yisterday to be mended. 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 honor's legs, would be, I anticipate, rather low; but you, sir, will honor 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, so did the other schoolmaster, whilst the Englishman completely lost his temper--swearing that such another uncivilized establishment was not between the poles.

“I solemnly supplicate upwards of fifty pardons,” said Mat; “bad manners to it for a stool! but, your honor, it was my own detect of speculation, bekase, you see, it's minus a leg--a circumstance of which you waren't wi a proper capacity to take cognation, its 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 Kevanagh, isn't this precisely what is called a hedge-school?”

“A hedge-school!” replied Mat, highly offended; “my seminary a hedge-school! No, sir; I scorn the cognomen in toto. This, sir, is a Classical and Mathematical Seminary, 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, “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 just 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 consequentiae?_”

“Yes,” subjoined the other, “produce your _vis consequentiae_; but any one may know by a glance that the divil a much of it's about you.”

The Englishman himself was rather at a loss for the _vis consequentiae_, and replied, “Why don't you live, and learn, and teach like civilized 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 clusther of wild coults!” said Mat; “that shows what you are; no man of classical larnin' would use such a word. If you had stuck at the asses, we know it's a subject you're at home in--ha! ha! ha!--but you brought the joke on yourself, your honor--that is, if it is a joke--ha! ha! ha!”

“Permit me, sir,” replied the strange master, “to ax your honor 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 are 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 may be you would be as well off if you had picked up your larnin' in our own Thrinity; there's good picking in Thrinity, for gentlemen 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 quarrere verum.'

“What was Plato himself but a hedge schoolmaster? and, with 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: eh?”

“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 plenty of hedge scholars, any how--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, determined 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?”

“Ay, or how will you consther and parse me this sintince?” said Mat--

“'Ragibus et clotibus solemus stopere windous,
Non numerus sumus et fruges consumere nati,
Stercora flat stiro raro terra-tanfcaro bungo.'”

“Aisy, Mister Kavanagh,” replied the other; “let the Cantabrigian 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,' without the Key?” said Mat.

“Maybe,” said the stranger, who threw off the frize 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; “I have not the least curiosity 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------Kevanagh. 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 me Latin for a _game-egg_ in two words?”

“Eh, a game egg? No, by my honor, I cannot--gentlemen, I yield.”

“Ay, I thought so,” replied Mat; “and, faith, I believe the divil a much of the game bird about you--you bring it home to Cambridge, 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. Kevanagh?”

“Why, sir,” replied Mat, with his broad Milesian face, expanded by 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' I hope your honor will pardon me for the facetiousness--

'Quid vetat ridentem dicere verum!'

as Horace says to Maecenas, in 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 very tattered coat hanging about him; and, catching his forelock, bobbed down his head after the usual manner, saying--“Musha yarrah, long life to your honor 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 gentleman 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 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 congratulated in the following phrases by the scholars:--

“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, Bah! Come back till we put the _suggaun_* about your neck. Bah! You now must go to school to Cambridge 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!”

* The suggaun 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.

“Well, boys, never heed yez for that,” shouted Mat; “never fear but I'll castigate yez, 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 makes five? What's the Latin for poteen, and flummery? You a mathemathitician! could you measure a snail's horn? How does your hat stay up and nothing undher it? Will you fight Barny Parrel 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 stable and horses, the night before last. The fact is, that the magistrates of the county are endeavoring to get the incendiaries, and would render a service to any person capable, either directly or indirectly, of facilitating the object, or stumbling on a clew 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, 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 honor 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 stables and horses were burnt; and to crown all, make the innocent childre the means of hanging their own fathers or brothers, you rap of the divil! 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 givin' yez to-day and to-morrow for a holyday: 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 crathur, boys, won't yez?”

The next day, of course, was one of festivity; every boy brought, in fact, as much provender 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 circumstance it had its name. The pupils were at liberty for that day to conduct themselves as they pleased: and the consequence was, that 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 neighborhood would be short. In other districts, 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 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 displeasure, 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 a regular attendant 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 mentioned, 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 as pale as ashes.

“Well,” said the fellow, “we'll just trouble you to walk with us a bit.”

“How far, with submission, are yez goin' to bring me?” said Mat.

“Do you know Johnny Short's hotel?” *

* The county jail.--Johnny Short was for many years the
Governor of Monaghan jail. It was to him the _Mittimus_
of “Fool Art,” mentioned in Phelim O'Toole's Courtship,
was directed. If the reader will suspend his curiosity,
that is, provided he feels any, until he comes to the
sketch just mentioned, he will get a more ample account
of Johnny Short.

“My curse upon you, Findramore,” exclaimed Mat, in a paroxysm of anguish, “every day you rise! but your breath's unlucky to a schoolmaster; and it's no lie what was often said, that no schoolmaster 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; any way, 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.”

“Damn the bit of 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. Gentlemen, innocence is a jewel.”

“But Barny Brady, that keeps the shebeen house--you know him--is of another opinion. You and some of the Pindramore boys took a sup in Barny's on a sartin night?”

“Ay, did we, on many a night, and will agin, plase Providence--no harm in takin' a sup any how--by the same token, that may be 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 neighborhood 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 in 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 observed, 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, brothers, cousins, and all persons to the most remote degree of kindred and acquaintanceship, were present--all excited by the alternate 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, coruscated with a wild and savage fire, that shot from under brows knit in a spirit that deemed to cry out Blood, vengeance--blood, vengeance! The expression was truly awful; all 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 under 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 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--it 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 Cartes, and many other larned men are gone before me. There is nothing in all philosophy more true than that, as the multiplication-table 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 yez; 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 will find 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 intuitions 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 buz 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 execution. He arrived, and brought a full pardon for Mat, and a 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 Barny Brady, who kept the shebeen, and was the principal evidence against those who were concerned in this outrage, he was compelled to enact an _ex tempore_ 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.”

* * * * *

(Note to page 834.)

The Author, in order to satisfy his readers that the character of Mat Kavanagh as a hedge schoolmaster is not by any means overdrawn, begs to subjoin (verbatim) the following authentic production of one, which will sufficiently explain itself, and give an excellent notion of the mortal feuds and jealousies which subsist between persons of this class:--

“To the Public.--Having read a printed Document, emanating, as it were, from a vile, mean, and ignorant miscreant of the name of ------, calumniating and vituperating me; it is evidently the production of a vain, supercilious, disappointed, frantic, purblind maniac of the name of ------, a bedlamite to all intents and purposes, a demon in the disguise of virtue, and a herald of hell in the paradise of innocence, possessing neither principle, honor, nor honesty; a vain and vapid creature whom nature plumed out for the annoyance of ------ and its vicinity.

“It is well known and appreciated by an enlightened and discerning public, that I am as competently qualified to conduct the duties of a Schoolmaster as any Teacher in Munster. (Here I pause, stimulated by dove-eyed humility, and by the fine and exalted feelings of nature, to make a few honorable exceptions, particularly when I memorize the names and immortal fame of a Mr. ------, a Mr.---------, a Mr. ---------, a Mr.---------, a Mr. ---------, a Mr. --------, ---------; a Mr. Matt. ---------, ---------; a Mr.---------, ---------; and many other stars of the first magnitude, too numerous for insertion).