Produced by David Widger
TRAITS AND STORIES OF THE IRISH PEASANTRY
BY WILLIAM CARLETON
PART V.
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GOING TO MAYNOOTH.
Young Denis O'Shaughnessy was old Denis's son; and old Denis, like
many great men before him, was the son of his father and mother in
particular, and a long line of respectable ancestors in general. He was,
moreover, a great historian, a perplexing controversialist, deeply read
in Dr. Gallagher and Pastorini, and equally profound in the history of
Harry the Eighth, and Luther's partnership with the devil. Denis was
a tall man, who, from his peculiar appearance, and the nature of
his dress, a light drab-colored frieze, was nicknamed the Walking
Pigeon-house; and truly, on seeing him at a distance, a man might
naturally enough hit upon a worse comparison. He was quite straight,
carried both his arms hanging by his sides, motionless and at their
full length, like the pendulums of a clock that has ceased going. In his
head, neck, and chest there was no muscular action visible; he walked,
in fact, as if a milk-pail were upon his crown, or as if a single nod of
his would put the planets out of order. But the principal cause of the
similarity lay in his roundness, which resembled that of a pump, running
to a point, or the pigeon-house aforesaid, which is still better.
Denis, though a large man, was but a small farmer, for he rented only
eighteen acres of good land. His family, however, like himself, was
large, consisting of thirteen children, among whom Denis junior stood
pre-eminent. Like old Denis, he was exceedingly long-winded in argument,
pedantic as the schoolmaster who taught him, and capable of taking a
very comprehensive grasp of any tangible subject.
Young Denis's display of controversial talents was so remarkably
precocious, that he controverted his father's statements upon all
possible subjects, with a freedom from embarrassment which promised well
for that most distinguished trait in a controversialist--hardihood of
countenance. This delighted old Denis to the finger ends.
“Dinny, if he's spared,” he would say, “will be a credit to us all yet.
The sorra one of him but's as manly as anything, and as longheaded as a
four-footed baste, so he is! nothing daunts or dashes him, or puts him
to an amplush: but he'll look you in the face so stout an' cute, an'
never redden or stumble, whether he's right or wrong, that it does one's
heart good to see him. Then he has such a laning to it, you see, that
the crathur 'ud ground an argument on anything, thin draw it out to a
norration an' make it as clear as rock-water, besides incensing you
so well into the rason of the thing, that Father Finnerty himself 'ud
hardly do it betther from the althar.”
The highest object of an Irish peasant's ambition is to see his son a
priest. Whenever a farmer happens to have a large family, he usually
destines one of them for the church, if his circumstances are at all
such as can enable him to afford the boy a proper education. This youth
becomes the centre in which all the affections of the family meet. He
is cherished, humored in all his caprices, indulged in his boyish
predilections, and raised over the heads of his brothers, independently
of all personal or relative merit in himself. The consequence is,
that he gradually became self-willed, proud, and arrogant, often to
an offensive degree; but all this is frequently mixed up with a lofty
bombast, and an under-current of strong disguised affection, that render
his early life remarkably ludicrous and amusing. Indeed, the pranks of
pedantry, the pretensions to knowledge, and the humor with which it is
mostly displayed, render these scions of divinity, in their intercourse
with the people until the period of preparatory education is completed,
the most interesting and comical class, perhaps, to be found in the
kingdom. Of these learned priestlings young Denis was undoubtedly
a first-rate specimen. His father, a man of no education, was,
nevertheless, as profound and unfathomable upon his favorite subjects as
a philosopher; but this profundity raised him mightily in the opinion of
the people, who admired him the more the less they understood him.
Now old Denis was determined that young Denis should tread in his own
footsteps; and, sooth to say, young Denis possessed as bright a talent
for the dark and mysterious as the father himself. No sooner had the
son commenced Latin with the intention of adorning the church, than the
father put him in training for controversy. For a considerable time
the laurels were uniformly borne away by the veteran: but what will not
learning do? Ere long the son got as far as syntax, about which time
the father began to lose ground, in consequence of some ugly quotations
which the son threw into his gizzard, and which unfortunately stuck
there. By and by the father receded more and more, as the son advanced
in his Latin and Greek, until, at length, the encounters were only
resorted to for the purpose of showing off the son.
When young Denis had reached the age of sixteen or seventeen, he was
looked upon by his father and his family, as well as by all their
relations in general, as a prodigy. It was amusing to witness the
delight with which the worthy man would call upon his son to exhibit his
talents, a call to which the son instantly attended. This was usually
done by commencing a mock controversy, for the gratification of some
neighbor to whom the father was anxious to prove the great talents
of his son. When old Denis got the young sogarth fairly in motion, he
gently drew himself out of the dispute, but continued a running comment
upon the son's erudition, pointed out his good things, and occasionally
resumed the posture of the controversialist to reinspirit the boy if he
appeared to flag.
“Dinny, abouchal, will you come up till Phadrick Murray hears you
arguin' Scripthur wid myself, Dinny. Now, Phadrick, listen, but keep
your tongue sayin' nothin'; just lave us to ourselves. Come up, Dinny,
till you have a hate at arguin' wid myself.”
“Fadher, I condimnate you at once--I condimnate you as being a most
ungrammatical ould man, an' not fit to argue wid any one that knows
Murray's English Grammar, an' more espaciously the three concords of
Lily's Latin one; that is the cognation between the nominative case and
the verb, the consanguinity between the substantive and the adjective,
and the blood-relationship that irritates between the relative and the
antecedent.”
“I tould you, Phadrick!! There's the boy that can rattle off the high
English, and the larned Latin, jist as if he was born wid an English
Dictionary in one cheek, a Latin Neksuggawn in the other, an Doctor
Gallagher's Irish Sarmons nately on the top of his tongue between the
two.”
“Fadher, but that unfortunately I am afflicted wid modesty, I'd blush
crocus for your ignorance, as Virgil asserts in his Bucolics, _ut
Virgilius ait in Bucolids_; and as Horatius, a book that I'm well
acquainted wid, says in another place, _Huc pertinent verba_, says
he, _commodandi, comparandi, dandi, prornittendi, soluendi imperandi
nuntiandi, fidendi, obsequendi, minandi irascendi, et iis contraria_.”
“That's a good boy, Dinny; but why would you blush for my ignorance,
avourneen? Take care of yourself now an' spake deep, for I'll outargue
you at the heel o' the hunt, cute as you are.”
“Why do I blush for your ignorance, is it? Why thin, I'm sure I have
sound rasons for it; only think of the gross persivarance wid which
you call that larned work, the Lexicon in Greek, a neck-suggan. Fadher,
never, attimpt to argue or display your ignorance wid me again. But,
moreover, I can probate you to be an ungrammatical man from your own
modus of argument.”
“Go an, avourneen. Phadrick!!”
“I'm listenin'. The sorra's no match for his cuteness, an' one's puzzled
to think where he can get it all.”
“Why, you don't know at all what I could do by larnin'. It would be no
throuble to me to divide myself into two halves, an' argue the one agin
the other.”
“You would, in throth, Dinny.”
“Ay, father, or cut myself acrass, an' dispute my head, maybe, agin my
heels.”
“Throth, would you!”
“Or practise logic wid my right hand, and bate that agin wid my left.”
“The sarra lie in it.”
“Or read the Greek Tistament wid my right eye, an thranslate it at the
same time wid my left, according to the Greek an' English sides of my
face, wid my tongue constrein' into Irish, unknownst to both o' them.”
“Why, Denis, he must have a head like a bell to be able to get into
things.”
“Throth an' he has that, an' 'ill make a noise in conthroversy yet, if
he lives. Now, Dinny, let us have a hate at histhory.”
“A hate at histhory?--wid all my heart; but before we begin, I tell you
that I'll confound you precipitately; for you see, if you bate me in the
English, I'll scarify you wid Latin, and give you a bang or two of Greek
into the bargain. Och! I wish you'd hear the sackin' I gave Tom Reilly
the other day; rubbed him down, as the masther says, wid a Greek towel,
an' whenever I complimented him with the loan of a cut on the head,
I always gave him a plaster of Latin to heal it; but the sorra worse
healin' flesh in the world than Tom's is for the Latin, so I bruised a
few Greek roots and laid them to his caput so nate, that you'd laugh
to see him. Well is it histhory we are to begin wid? If it is, come
on--advance. I'm ready for you--in protection--wid my guards up.”
“Ha, ha, ha! Well, if he isn't the drollest crathur, an' so cute! But
now for the histhory. Can you prove to me, upon a clear foundation, the
differ atween black an' white, or prove that Phadrick Murray here,
long life to him, is an ass? Now, Phadrick, listen, for you must decide
betune us.”
“Orra, have you no other larnin' than that to argue upon? Sure if you
call upon me to decide, I must give it agin Dinny. Why my judgment won't
be worth a hap'orth, if he makes an ass of me!”
“What matther how you decide, man alive, if he proves you to be one;
sure that is all we want. Never heed shakin' your head--listen an' it
will be well worth your while. Why, man, you'll know more nor you ever
knew or suspected before, when he proves you to be an ass.”
“In the first place, fadher, you're ungrammatical in one word; instead
of sayin' 'prove,' always say probate, or probe; the word is descended,
that is, the ancisthor of it, is probo, a deep Greek word--probo,
probas, prob-ass, that is to say, I'm to probe Phadrick here to be
an ass. Now, do you see how pat I brought that in? That's the way,
Phadrick, I chastise my fadher with the languages.”
“In throth it is; go an avick. Phadrick!”
“I'm listenin'.”
“Phadrick, do you know the differ atween black an' white'?”
“Atween black an' white? Hut, gorsoon, to be sure I do.”
“Well, an' what might it be, Phadrick, my larned Athiop? What might it
be, I negotiate?”
“Why, thin, the differ atween them is this, Dinny, that black is--let me
see--why--that black is not red--nor yallow--nor brown--nor green--nor
purple--not cut-beard--nor a heather color--nor a grog-ram”--
“Nor a white?”
“Surely, Dinny, not a white, abouchal; don't think to come over me that
way.”
“But I want to know what color it is, most larned sager.”
“All rasonable, Dinny, Why, thin, black is--let me see--hut, death
alive!--it's--a--a--why, it's black, an' that's all I can say about it;
yes, faix, I can--black is the color of Father Curtis's coat.”
“An' what color is that, Phadrick?”
“Why, it's black, to be sure.”
“Well, now, what color is white, Phadrick?”
“Why, it's a snow-color: for all the world the color of snow.”
“White is?”
“Ay, is it.”
“The dear help your head, Phadrick, if that's all you know about snow.
In England, man, snow is an Oxford gray, an' in Scotland, a pepper an'
salt, an' sometimes a cut-beard, when they get a hard winther. I found
that much in the Greek, any way, Phadrick. Thry agin, you imigrant, I'll
give you another chance--what color is white?”
“Why, thin, it's--white--an' nothin' else. The sorra one but you'd
puzzle a saint wid your long-headed screwtations from books.”
“So, Phadrick, your preamble is, that white is white, an' black is
black?”
“Asy avick. I said, sure enough, that white is white; but the black I
deny--I said it was the color of Father Curtis's black coat.”
“Oh, you barbarian of the world, how I scorn your profundity an'
emotions! You're a disgrace to the human sex by your superciliousness
of knowledge, an' your various quotations of ignorance. Ignorantia,
Phadrick, is your date an' superscription. Now, stretch out your ears,
till I probate, or probe to you the differ atween black an' white.”
“Phadrick!!” said the father.
“I'm listenin'.”
“Now, Phadrick, here's the griddle, an' here's a clane plate. Do you see
them here beside one another?”
“I'm lookin' at them.”
“Now, shut your eyes.”
“Is that your way, Denis, of judgin' colors?”
“Shut your eyes, I say, till I give you ocular demonstration of the
differ atween these two respectable colors.”
“Well, they're shut.”
“An' keep them so. Now, what differ do you see atween them?”
“The sorra taste, man alive; I never seen anything in my whole life so
clearly of a color as they are both this minute.”
“Don't you see now, Phadrick, that there's not the smallest taste o'
differ in them, an' that's accordin' to Euclid.”
“Sure enough, I see the divil a taste o' differ atween the two.”
“Well, Phadrick, that's the point settled. There's no discrimination at
all atween black an' white. They're both of the same color--so long as
you keep your eyes shut.”
“But if a man happens to open his eyes, Dinny?”
“He has no right to open them, Phadrick, if he wants to prove the truth
of a thing. I should have said probe--but it does not significate.”
“The heavens mark you to grace, Dinny. You did that in brave style.
Phadrick, ahagur, he'll make the darlin' of an arguer whin he gets the
robes an him.”
“I don't deny that; he'll be aquil to the best o' thim: still, Denis,
I'd rather, whin I want to pronounce upon colors, that he'd let me keep
my eyes open.”
“Ay, but he did it out o' the books, man alive; an' there's no goin'
beyant thim. Sure he could prove it out of the Divinity, if you went
to that. An' what is still more, he could, by shuttin' your eyes, in the
same way prove black to be white, an' white black, jist as asy.”
“Surely myself doesn't doubt it. I suppose, by shuttin' my eyes, the
same lad could prove anything to me.”
“But, Dinny, avourneen, you didn't prove Phadrick to be an ass yit.
Will you do that by histhory, too, Dinny, or by the norrations of
Illocution?”
“Father, I'm surprised at your gross imperception. Why, man, if you
were not a _rara avis_ of somnolency, a man of most frolicsome
determinations, you'd be able to see that I've proved Phadrick to be an
ass already.”
“Throth, I deny that you did; there wasn't a word about my bein' an
ass, in the last discoorse. It was all upon the differ atween black an'
white.”
“Oh, how I scorn your gravity, man! _Ignorantia_, as I said, is your
date an' superscription; an' when you die, you ought to go an' engage
a stone-cutter to carve you a headstone, an' make him write on it, _Hic
jacet Ignorantius Redivicus_. An' the translation of that is, accordin'
to Publius Virgilius Maro--'here lies a quadruped who didn't know the
differ atween black an' white.'”
“Well, by the livin', Dinny, I dunna where you get all this deep
readin'.”
“Sure he gets it all in the Dixonary.”
“Bedad, that Dixonary must be a fine book entirely, to thim that
undherstand it.”
“But, Dinny, will you tell Phadrick the Case of Conscience atween Barny
Branagan's two goats an' Parra Ghastha's mare?”
“Fadher, if you were a grammarian, I'd castigate your incompatability as
it desarves--I'd lay the scourge o' syntax upon you, as no man ever
got it since the invintion o' the nine parts of speech. By what rule of
logic can you say that aither Barny Branagan's goats or Parra Ghastha's
mare had a conscience? I tell you it wasn't they had the conscience,
but the divine who decided the difficulty. Phadrick, lie down till I
illusthrate.”
“How is that, Dinny? I can hear you sittin'.”
“Lie down, you reptile, or I shall decline the narration altogether.”
“Arra, lie down, Phadrick; sure he only wants to show you the rason o'
the thing.”
“Well, well; I'm down. Now Dinny, don't let your feet be too larned, if
you plase.”
“Silence!--_taceto!_ you reptile. Now, Phadrick, here, on this side o'
you, lies Barny Branagan's field; an' there, on that side, lies a field
of Parra Ghastha's; you're the ditch o' mud betuxt them.”
“The ditch o' mud! Faix that's dacent!”
“Now here, on Barny Branagan's side, feeds Parra Ghastha's mare; an'
there, on Parra Ghastha's side, feed Barny Branagan's goats. Do you
comprehend? Do you insinuate?”
“I do--I do. Death alive! there's no use in punchin' my sides wid your
feet that way.”
“Well, get up now an' set your ears.”
“Now listen to him, Phadrick!”
“It was one night in winter, when all nature shone in the nocturnal
beauty of tenebrosity: the sun had set about three hours before; an',
accordin' to the best logicians, there was a dearth of light. It's the
general opinion of philosophers--that is, of the soundest o' them--that
when the sun is down the moon an' stars are usually up; an' so they were
on the night that I'm narratin' about. The moon was, wid great respect
to her character, night-walkin' in the sky; and the stars vegetated in
celestial genuflexion around her. Nature, Phadrick, was in great state;
the earth was undher our feet, an' the sky above us. The frost, too,
was hard, Phadrick, the air keen, an' the grass tendher. All things
were enrobed wid verisimilitude an' scrupulosity. In this manner was the
terraqueous part of our system, when Parra Ghastha's mare, after havin'
taken a cowld collation on Barny Branagan's grass, was returnin' to her
master's side o' the merin; an' Barny Branagan's goats, havin' tasted
the sweets of Parra Ghastha's cabbages, were on their way acrass the
said merin to their own side. Now it so happened that they met exactly
at a narrow gap in the ditch behind Rosha Halpin's house. The goats,
bein' coupled together, got one on each side of the rift, wid the rope
that coupled them extended acrass it. The mare stood in the middle of
it, so that the goats were in the way of the mare, an' the mare in the
way of the goats. In the meantime they surveyed one another wid great
composure, but had neither of them the politeness to stir, until Rosha
Halpin came suddenly out, an' emptied a vessel of untransparent wather
into the ditch. The mare, who must have been an animal endowed wid great
sensibility of soul, stooped her head suddenly at the noise; an' the
goats, who were equally sentimental, gave a start from nervishness. The
mare, on raisin' her head, came in contact wid the cord that united the
goats; an' the goats, havin' lost their commandin' position, came in
contact wid the neck o' the mare. _Quid multis?_ They pulled an' she
pulled, an' she pulled an' they pulled, until at length the mare was
compelled to practise the virtue of resignation in the ditch, wid the
goats about her neck. She died by suspinsion; but the mettlesome ould
crathur, wid a love of justice that did her honor, hanged the goat's
in requital; for they departed this vale of tears on the mountain side
along wid her, so that they had the satisfaction of dyin' a social death
together.--Now, Phadrick, you quadruped, the case of conscience is,
whether Parra Ghastha has a right to make restitution to Barny Branagan
for the loss of his goats, or Barny Branagan to Parra Ghastha for the
loss of his mare?”
“Bedad, that's a puzzler!”
“Isn't it, Phadrick? But wait till you hear how he'll clear it up! Do it
for Phadrick, Dinny.”
“Yis, Phadrick, I'll illusthrate your intellects by divinity. You see,
Phadrick, you're to suppose me to be in the chair, as confessor. Very
well,--or _valde_, in the larned languages--Parra Ghastha comes to
confess to me, an' tells me that Barny Branagan wants to be paid for his
goats. I tell him it's a disputed point, an that the price o' the goats
must go to the church. On the other hand, Barny Branagan tells me
that Parra Ghastha wishes to be paid for his mare. I say again, it's
a disputed point, an' that the price o' the mare must go to the
church--the amount of the proceeds to be applied in prayer towards the
benefit of the parties, in the first instance, an' of the faithful in
general afterwards.”
“Phadrick!!!”
“Oh, that I may never, but he bates the globe!”
Denny's character is a very common one in the remote parts of Ireland,
where knowledge is novelty, and where the slightest tinge of learning
is looked upon with such reverence and admiration, as can be properly
understood only by those who have an opportunity of witnessing it.
Indeed, few circumstances prove the great moral influence which the
Irish priesthood possesses over the common people more forcibly, than
the extraordinary respect paid by the latter to such as are designed for
the “mission.” The moment the determination is made, an incipient
sanctity begins, as it were, to consecrate the young priest; and a high
opinion of his learning and talents to be entertained, no matter how
dull he may be so far as honest nature is concerned. Whatever he says is
sure to have some hidden meaning in it, that would be' highly edifying,
if they themselves understood it. But their own humility comes in here
to prop up his talents; and whatsoever perplexity there may be in
the sense of what he utters, is immediately attributed to learning
altogether beyond their depth.
Love of learning is a conspicuous principle in an Irish peasant; and in
no instance is it seen to greater advantage, than when the object of it
appears in the “makins of a priest.” Among all a peasant's good and evil
qualities, this is not the least amiable. How his eye will dance in his
head with pride, when the young priest thunders out a line of Virgil
or Homer, a sentence from Cicero, or a rule from Syntax! And with
what complacency and affection will the father and relations of such a
person, when sitting during a winter evening about the hearth, demand
from him a translation of what he repeats, or a grammatical analysis, in
which he must show the dependencies and relations of word upon word--the
concord, the verb, the mood, the gender, and the case; into every
one and all of which the learned youth enters with an air of oracular
importance, and a pollysyllabicism of language that fails not in
confounding them with astonishment and edification. Neither does Paddy
confine himself to Latin or Greek, for his curiosity in hearing a little
upon all known branches of human learning is boundless. When a lad is
designed for the priesthood, he is, as if by a species of intuition,
supposed to know more or less of everything--astronomy, fluxions,
Hebrew, Arabic, and the black art, are subjects upon which he is
frequently expected to dilate; and vanity scruples not, under the
protection of their ignorance, to lead the erudite youth through
what they believe to be the highest regions of imagination, or the
profoundest depths of science and philosophy.
It is, indeed, in those brilliant moments, when the young priest is
launching out in full glory upon some topic of which he knows not a
syllable, that it would be a learned luxury to catch him. These flights,
however, are very pardonable, when we consider the importance they
give him in the eyes of his friends, and reflect upon that lofty and
contemptuous pride, and those delectable sensations which the appearance
of superior knowledge gives to the pedant, whether raw or trained, high
or low, in this profession or the other. It matters little that such
a feeling dilates the vanity in proportion to the absence of real
knowledge or good sense: it is not real, but affected knowledge, we are
writing about. Pride is confined to no condition; nor is the juvenile
pedantry of a youth upon the hob of an Irish chimney-corner much
different from the pride which sits upon the brow of a worthy Lord
Mayor, freshly knighted, lolling with strained dignity beside his
honorable brother, the mace, during a city procession; or of a Lady
Mayoress, when she reads upon a dead wall her own name flaming in yellow
capitals, at the head of a subscription ball; or, what is better still,
the contemptuous glance which, while about to open the said ball, her
ladyship throws at that poor creature--the Sheriff's wife.
In addition, however, to the enjoyment of this assumption of profound
learning which characterizes the young priest, a different spirit,
considerably more practical, often induces him to hook in other motives.
The learning of Denis O'Shaughnessy, for instance, blazed with peculiar
lustre whenever he felt himself out at elbows; for the logic with
which he was able to prove the connection between his erudition and a
woollen-draper's shop, was, like the ignorance of those who are to be
saved, invincible. Whenever his father considered a display of the
son's powers in controversy to be _capital_, Denis, who knew the _mollia
tempora fandi_, applied to him for a hat. Whenever he drew a heretic,
as a person who will be found hereafter without the wedding garment, and
clinched the argument with half a dozen quotations from syntax or Greek
grammar, he uniformly came down upon the father for a coat, the cloth
of which was finer in proportion to the web of logic he wove during the
disputation. Whenever he seated himself in the chair of rhetoric, or
gave an edifying homily on prayer, with such eloquence as rendered the
father's admiration altogether inexpressible, he applied for a pair of
smallclothes; and if, in the excursiveness of his vigorous imagination
he travelled anywhere beyond the bounds of common sense, he was certain
to secure a pair of shoes.
This, of course, did not escape the satirical observation of the
neighbors, who commented upon the circumstance with that good humor
which renders their mother-wit so pleasant and spicy. The scenes where
many of these displays took place, varied according to the occurrence
of those usual incidents which diversify country life. Sometimes old
Denis's hearth was selected; at others, a neighboring wakehouse, and
not unfrequently the chapel-green, where, surrounded by a crowd of eager
listeners, the young priest and his Latin would succeed in throwing the
hedge-schoolmaster and his problems completely into the shade.
The father's pride, on these occasions, always prompted him to become
the aggressor; but he only did this to draw out the talents of his son
to more advantage. Never was man foiled with less regret than old Denis;
nor did ever man more bitterly repent those little touches of vanity,
which, sometimes induced him, when an opportunity of prostrating Denny
arrived, to show what he could have done, by giving the son's argument
an unexpected brainblow. These accidental defeats always brought the
son! more than he lost by them; for the father usually made him a
peace-offering in the shape of pocket-money, books, or clothes. The
great amusement of the peasantry around the chapel-green of a Sunday,
was to hear the father and son engaged in argument; and so simple was
the character of both, that their acquaintances declared, they could
know by the state of young Denis's coat, and the swaggering grasp with
which old Denis held his staff, that an encounter was about to take
place.
“Young O'Shaughnessy's gettin' bare,” they would observe; “there'll be
hard arguin' till he gets the clothes. He's puttin' in for a black coat
now, he's so grave. Go on, Denny,” they would say again: “more power
an' a dacenter sleeve to your elbow. Stick to him!--very good!--that's
a clincher!--you're gone beyond the skirts, Denny!--let him pocket
that larnin'. Dinis, you're bate, body and slaves! (* altogether;
completely)--you're no match for the gorsoon, Dinis. Good agin,
abouchal!--that's puttin' the collar on it!”--And so on, varying the
phrase according to the whim of the moment.
Nothing gave the father greater pleasure than these observations,
although the affected earnestness with which he encountered the son, and
his pretended indignation at those who affirmed him to have been beaten,
were highly amusing to the bystanders.
Such discussions were considered highly edifying and instructive by
them, and they were sometimes at a loss whether to give the palm of
ingenuity and eloquence to the father or Denny. The reader, however,
must not suppose that the contemptuous expressions scattered over
Denny's rhetorical flourishes; when discussing these points with his
father, implied want of reverence or affection--far from it. On the
contrary, the father always liked him the better for them, inasmuch as
they proved Denny's vast superiority over himself. They were, therefore,
only the licenses and embellishments of discussion, tolerated and
encouraged by him to whom they were applied.
Denny at length shot up to the stature of a young man, probably about
eighteen; and during the two last years of his school studies he
presented a considerable, if not a decidedly marked change in his
character and external appearance. His pride became more haughty, and
the consciousness of his learning, and of the influence annexed to
the profession for which he was intended, put itself forth with
less discussion, but more energy. His manners and attitude became
constrained; the expression of his face began to darken, and to mould
itself into a stiff, gloomy formality, that was strongly calculated
to conceal the natural traits of his character. His dress, too, had
undergone a great improvement; for instead of wearing shop blue or
brown, he wore good black broad-cloth, had a watch in his fob, a
respectable hat, and finer linen.
This change, now necessary in consequence of his semiclerical character,
influenced him through every relation of life. His nearest friends,
whilst their pride in him increased, fell off to a more respectful
distance; and his deportment, so far from being that of a good-humored
Bobadil of polemics and pedantry upon all known and unknown subjects,
became silent and solemn, chequered only during the moments of
family conviviality by an excessive flow of that pleasant and still
incomprehensible learning for the possession of which he had so honestly
earned himself a character. Much of his pedantry was now lopped off, it
is true, because the pride of his station prevented him from entering
into discussions with the people. It cost him, however, some trouble to
overcome his early tendencies; nor, after all, can it be affirmed that
he altogether succeeded in eradicating them. Many a grave shrug, and
solemn wink, and formal nod, had he to answer for, when his foot touched
the debatable land of controversy. Though contrary to the keeping
and dignity of his position in life, yet did honest Denny then get
desperately significant, and his face amazingly argumentative. Many a
pretender has he fairly annihilated by a single smile of contempt that
contained more logic than a long argument from another man. In fact, the
whole host of rhetorical figures seemed breaking out of his face. By
a solitary glance of his eye he could look a man into a dilemma, and
practise a _sorites_, or a homemade syllogism, by the various shiftings
of his countenance, as clearly as if he had risen to the full flight
of his former bombast. He had, in short, a _prima facie_ disposition to
controversy; his nose was set upon his face in a kind of firm defiance
against infidels, heretics, and excommunicated persons; and when
it curled with contempt of another, or with pride in the power that
slumbered in itself, it seemed to give the face from which it projected,
and the world at large, the assurance of a controversialist. Nor did his
negative talents rest here: a twist of his mouth to the right or left
ear, was nicely shaded away into a negative or affirmative, according
as he intended it should be taken; and when he used his
pocket-handkerchief, he was certain, though without uttering a syllable,
to silence his opponent, so contemptuously did his intonations rout the
arguments brought against him. The significance and force of all these
was heightened by the mystery in which they were wrapped; for whenever
unbending decorum constrained him to decline the challenges of the
ignorant, with whom discussion would now be degradation, what could he
do to soothe his vanity, except, as the poet says, with folded arms
and a shaking of the head to exclaim--“_Well, well we know;_ or, _if we
could, and if we would;_ or, _if we list to speak_; or, _there be an if
they might;_” which left the imaginations of his hearers at liberty
to conceive more fully of those powers which his modesty declined
exhibiting. For some time before he got absolutely and finally into
black, even his father gave up his accustomed argument in despair. The
son had become an adept in all the intricacies and obscurities of Latin,
and literally overwhelmed the old man with small inundations of that
language, which though, like all inundations, rather muddy, yet were
they quite sufficient to sweep the worthy veteran before them.
Young Denis O'Shaughnessy was now pretty nearly finished at school, that
is to say, almost fit for Maynooth; his studies, though higher, were
less assiduous; his leisure was consequently greater; and it is well
known, that a person of his character is never asked to work, except it
be his own pleasure to labor a day or two, by way of amusement. He might
now be seen walking of a warm day along the shady sides of the hedges,
with a book in his hand, or stretched listlessly upon the grass, at
study; or sauntering about among the neighboring workmen, with his
forefinger between the leaves of his book, a monument of learning and
industry.
It is not to be supposed, however, that Denis, who was an Irishman of
eighteen, handsome and well made, could be altogether insensible
to female beauty, and seductive charms of the sex. During his easy
saunterings--or, as the Scotch say, “daunerings”--along the roads and
about the green hedges, it often happened that he met a neighbor's
daughter; and Denis, who, as a young gentleman of breeding, was bound to
be courteous, could not do less than accost her with becoming urbanity.
“Good-mornin', Miss Norah,” we will suppose him to say, when meeting a
good-looking arch girl of his acquaintance.
“Good-morrow, Mr. O'Shaughnessy. I hope you're well, sir.”
“Indeed I am, at present, in superlatively ecclesiastical health, Miss
Norah. I hope all your family are well?”
“All very well, I thank you, sir, barrin' myself.”
“An' pray what's the matther wid you, Miss Norah? I hope” (with an
exceeding grave but complacent smile) “you're not affected wid the
amorous passion of love?”
“Oh, that 'ud be tellin', Mr. O'Shaughnessy! But supposin' I am, what
ought I to do?”
“That's really a profound question, Miss Norah. But though I cannot tell
you what to do, I can tell you what I think.”
“An' what is that, sir?”
“Why, Miss Norah, that he who is so beatified as to secure you in the
matrimonial paction--_compactum_ it is in the larned languages--in other
words--to condescend to your capacity--he who is married to you will be
a happy man. There is a juvenility about your eyes, and an efflorescence
of amaranthine odoriferousness about your cheeks and breath that are
enough to communicate the centrifugal motion to any brain adorned with
the slightest modicum of sentiment.”
“He who marries me will be a happy man!” she exclaimed, repeating these
expressions, probably because they were the only words she understood.
“I hope so, Misther O'Shaughnessy. But, sure enough, who'd expect to
hear sich soft talk from the makins of a priest? Very well, sir! Upon
my word I'll be tellin' Father Finnerty that you do be spakin' up to the
girls!--Now!!”
“No, no, Miss Norah; you wouldn't do that merely for my sayin' that
you're the handsomest girl in the parish. Father Finnerty himself might
say as much, for it would be nothing but veracity--nothing but truth,
Miss Norah.”
“Ah! but he wouldn't be pattin' me on the cheek! Be asy, Mr.
O'Shaughnessy; there's Darby Brady lookin' at you, an' he'll be
tellin'!”
“Where?” said Denis, starting.
The girl replied only by an arch laugh.
“Upon my classicality, Miss Norah, you're a rogue; there's nobody
lookin', you seraphim!”
“Then there's a pair of us rogues, Misther Dinis.”
“No, no, Miss Norah; I was only feeling your cheek as a philosophical
experiment. Philosophers often do it, in order to make out an
hypothesis.”
“Misther Dinis, if I'm not marrid till you're a priest, won't you say
the words for me for nothing?”
“So long as you ask it wid such a brilliant smiled Miss Norah, do
you think that any educated young man who has read about beauty an'
sentimentality in books, could refuse you? But you know, Miss Norah,
that the clergyman who marries a couple has always the right of kissing
the bride. Now I wouldn't claim my right then; but it might be possible
by a present compromise to--to----. What would you think, for instance,
to give me that now?”
“To give you what?”
“Why the----indeed it's but a slight recompense, the--k---- the
salutation--the kiss. You know what tasting the head means?”
“Faix, Misther Dinis, you're a great rogue. Who'd think it indeed? Sure
enough, they say smooth water runs deep! Why one 'ud suppose butther
wouldn't melt in your mouth to look at you; an' yet you want to be
toyin' wid the girls! Indeed an' faix, it's a great shame for the likes
o' you, that's bint on Maynooth, to be thinkin' of coortin' at all. But
wait! Upon my word, I'll have a fine story agin you, plase goodness!”
This latter threat the mischievous girl threw out with a grave face, in
order to bring Denis into a more ridiculous dilemma; for she saw clearly
that he labored under a heavy struggle between timidity and gallantry.
The ruse succeeded. Denis immediately changed his tone, and composed
his face into a grave admonitory aspect, nearly equal to a homily on
prudence and good conduct.
“Miss Norah,” said he, “perhaps I acted wrong in carrying my trial
of your disposition too far. It's a thing, however, which we who are
intended for the church are ordered to do, that we may be able to
make out what are called in this very book you see wid me, cases of
conscience. But the task is now over, Miss Norah; and, in requital
for your extrame good nature, I am bound to administer to you a slight
lecture on decorum.
“In the first place, attend your duties regularly. I will soon be
goin' to Maynooth; an' as you are one of the girls for whom I have the
greatest regard, I will expect on my return to hear a good account
of you. It is possible that you'll be introduced in my absence to the
honors of matrimony; but even so, I know that peace, an' taciturnity,
an' submission will be your most signal qualifications. You will then be
in a situation equal to that of a Roman matron. As for us, Miss Norah,
we are subject to the dilapidations of occasional elevation.
The ambrosia of sentiment lies in our path. We care not for the
terrestrialities of life, when separated from the great principle of the
poet--
'_Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori_.'
That's Hebrew, Miss Norah!”
“They say you know a power of larnin', Misther Dinis.”
“Yes, I know the seven languages; but what is all that compared to the
cardinal virtues. This world is a mere bird of passage, Miss Norali; and
it behooves us to be ever on the wing for futurity and premeditation.
Now, will you remember the excellent moral advice I have given you?”
“Indeed I will, sir,” replied the roguish minx, tripping away;
“particularly that you promised to marry me for nothin' if I'd give you
a kiss!”
“Give up everything like levity, Miss Norah. Attend your du--”
[Illustration: PAGE 985-- You're a fool, Misther O'Shaughnessy!]
“You're a fool, Misther O'Shaughnessy! Why didn't you take the kiss, an'
spare the king's English?”
On making this observation she redoubled her pace, and left Denis now
perfectly sensible that he was a proper subject for her mirth. He turned
about, and called after her--
“Had I known that you were only in jocosity, Miss Nora, upon my
classicality, I'd have given you the k----.”
He now perceived that she was beyond hearing, and that it was
unnecessary to finish the sentence.
These accidental meetings between Denis and the pretty daughters of the
neighboring farmers were, somehow, very frequent. Our hero, however, was
always extremely judicious in tempering his gallantry and moral advice
to his young female acquaintances. In the beginning of the conversation
he was sly and complimentary, afterwards he became more insinuating,
then more direct in his praises of their beauty; but as his timidity on
the point of character was known, the mischief-loving girls uniformly
ended with a threat of exposing him to the priest, to his friends, or to
the neighbors, as the whim directed them. This brought him back to his
morality again; he immediately commenced an exhortation touching their
religious duties, thus hoping to cover, by a trait more becoming
his future destination, the little harmless badinage in which he had
indulged.
The girls themselves frequently made him the topic of conversation, a
proof that he was not altogether indifferent to them. In these little
conclaves he came very well off. Among them all it was admitted “that
there was a rogue in his coat;” but this was by no means uttered in a
tone of voice that betrayed any disrelish to him. On the contrary, they
often said--and many of them with an involuntary sigh--that “he was too
purty to be made a priest of;” others, that “it was a pity to make a
priest of so fine a young man;” others, again, that “if he must be a
priest, the colleens would be all flockin' to hear his sarmons.” There
was one, however, among them who never mentioned him either in praise or
censure; but the rapid changes of her expressive countenance gave
strong indications to an observing eye that his name, person, and future
prospects were capable of exciting a deep and intense interest in her
heart.
At length he began to appear on horseback; and as he had hitherto been
in the habit of taking that exercise bare-backed, now he was resolved
to get into a saddle, and ride like a gentleman. Henceforth he might be
seen mounted upon one of his father's horses, quite erect, and with but
one spur, which was, in fact, the only spur, except the whiskey bottle,
that had been in the family for three generations. This was used, he
declared, for no other purpose in life than that of “stimulating the
animal to the true clerical trot.”
From the moment he became a mounted man he assumed an air of less
equivocal command in the family; and not only to his own relations was
this authority manifested, but to his more distant acquaintances, and,
in short, to the whole parish. The people now began to touch their hats
to him, which act of respect he returned as much in imitation of the
parish priest as possible. They also began to ask him what o'clock
it was, and Denis, with a peculiar condescension, balanced still with
becoming dignity, stopped, pulled out his watch, and told the hour,
after which he held it for a few seconds to his ear with an experienced
air, then put it in a dignified manner in his fob, touched the horse
with the solitary spur, put himself more erect, and proceeded with--as
he himself used to say, when condemning the pride of the curate--“all
the lordliness of the parochial priest.”
The notions which the peasantry entertain of a priest's learning are as
extravagant as they are amusing, and such, indeed, as would be too
much for the pedantic vanity inseparable from a half-educated man to
disclaim. The people are sufficiently reasonable, however, to admit
gradations in the extent of knowledge acquired by their pastors; but
some of the figures and illustrations which they use in estimating their
comparative merits are highly ludicrous. I remember a young man, who,
at the age of twenty-two, set about preparing himself for the church. He
lived in the bosom of a mountain, whose rugged breast he cultivated
with a strength proportioned to the difficulty of subduing it. He was
a powerful young fellow, quiet and inoffensive in his manners, and
possessed of great natural talents. It was upon a Monday morning, in the
month of June, that the school-room door opened a foot and a half wider
than usual, and a huge, colossal figure stalked in, with a kind of
bashful laugh upon his countenance, as if conscious of the disproportion
betwixt his immense size and that of the other schoolboys. His figure,
without a syllable of exaggeration, was precisely such as I am about to
describe. His height six feet, his shoulders of an enormous breadth,
his head red as fire; his body-coat made after the manner of his
grandfather's--the skirts of it being near his heels--and the buttons
behind little less than eighteen inches asunder. The pockets were cut
so low, that when he stretched his arm to its full length, his fingers
could not get further than the flaps; the breast of it was about nine
inches longer than was necessary, so that when he buttoned it, he
appeared all body. He wore no cravat, nor was his shirt-collar either
pinned or buttoned, but lay open as if to disclose an immense neck and
chest scorched by the sun into a rich and healthy scarlet. His chin was
covered with a sole of red-dry bristles, that appeared to have been
clipped about a fortnight before; and as he wore neither shoe
nor stocking, he exhibited a pair of legs to which Rob Roy's were
drumsticks. They gave proof of powerful strength, and the thick fell of
bristly hair with which they were covered argued an amazing hardihood of
constitution and tremendous physical energy.
“Sure, Masther, I'm comin' to school to you!” were the first words he
uttered.
Now there ran beneath the master's solemnity of manner a broad but
shallow under-current of humor, which agreed but poorly with his pompous
display of learning. On this occasion his struggle to retain the grave
and overcome the ludicrous was unavailing. The startling fact thus
uncouthly announced by so grotesque a candidate for classical knowledge
occasioned him to receive the intelligence with more mirth than was
consistent with good breeding. His pupils, too, who were hitherto afraid
to laugh aloud, on observing his countenance dilate into an expression
of laughter which he could not conceal, made the roof of the house ring
with their mirth.
“Silence, gintlemen,” said he; “_legite, perlegite, et relegite_--study,
gintlemen, study--pluck the tree of knowledge, I say, while the fruit is
in season. Denny O'Shaughnessy, what are you facetious for? _Quid rides,
Dionysi_ And so, Pether--is Pettier your pronomen--quo nomine gowdes?
Silence, boys!--perhaps he was at Latin before, and we'll try him--_quo
nomine gowdes, Pethre?_”
A stare of awkward perplexity was the only reply he could get from the
colossus he addressed.
“And so you're fished up from the Streights (* Alluding to the Colossus
of Rhodes) at last, Pether?”
“Sir, my name's not Pether. My father's name is Paddy Doorish, but my
own is Franky. I was born in Lisnagh; but we lived double as long as I
can mind in the Mountain Bar.”
“And, Franky, what put Latin into your head?”
“There was no Latin put into my head; I'm comin' to you for that.”
“And, you graceful sprig of juvenility, have you the conscience to think
that I'd undhertake to fill what you carry on your showlders on the
same terms that I'd take for replenishing the head of a rasonable youth?
Would you be so unjust in all the principles of correct erudition as to
expect that, my worthy Man-mountain?”
“I don't expect it,” said Frank; “all that's in your head wouldn't fill
the corner of mine, if you go accordin' to size; but I'll pay you for
tachin' me as much as you know yourself, an' the more I larn the less
pains you'll have wid me.”