The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh Part 9

"Yes, and of Mary Malone, my mother, too, sir."

"Why, thin, that's not so bad, any how--what's your name?"

"d.i.c.k, sir."

"Now, d.i.c.k, 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k? I say, boys, will none of yez give d.i.c.k the Harmony? Well, come, d.i.c.k, 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 d.i.c.k'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 d.i.c.ky pounded the old crazy door with all his skill and alacrity. The "boys" were delighted.

"Bravo, d.i.c.k, 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 ba.s.s 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 astonis.h.i.+ng tide of voice; whilst little d.i.c.k, 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 es.p.a.cial 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 ha.s.socks, which, in joint considheration with the length of your honor's legs, would be, I antic.i.p.ate, 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 circ.u.mstance 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 Cla.s.sical and Mathematical Seminary, under the personal superintendence of your humble servant."

"Sir," replied the other master, who till then was silent, wis.h.i.+ng, 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 a.s.semble like wild a.s.ses--pardon me, my friend, for the simile--at least like wild colts, in such cl.u.s.ters behind the ditches?"

"A cl.u.s.ther of wild coults!" said Mat; "that shows what you are; no man of cla.s.sical larnin' would use such a word. If you had stuck at the a.s.ses, 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 cla.s.sical 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 cla.s.sical 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?"