The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh Part 10

"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 pa.r.s.e 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 a.s.sure 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, wis.h.i.+n' 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 a.s.sure 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, d.a.m.n 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' h.e.l.l 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 circ.u.mstance 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 clerks.h.i.+p 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.