the roof; the bauks, or rafters, cross them from one
side to another like the line inside the letter.
Whilst these successive processes went forward, many others had been
engaged all the morning cutting rushes; and the scraws were no sooner
laid on, than half a dozen thatchers mounted the roof, and long before
the evening was closed, a school-house, capable of holding near two
hundred children, was finished. But among the peasantry no new house is
ever put up without a hearth-warming and a dance. Accordingly the clay
floor was paired--a fiddler procured--Barny Brady and his stock
of poteen sent for; the young women of the village and surrounding
neighborhood attended in their best finery; dancing commenced--and
it was four o'clock the next morning when the merry-makers departed,
leaving Mat a new home and a hard floor, ready for the reception of his
scholars.
Business now commenced. At nine o'clock the next day Mat's furniture
was settled in a small cabin, given to him at a cheap rate by one of the
neighboring farmers; for, whilst the school-house was being built,
two men, with horses and cars, had gone to Clansallagh, accompanied
by Nancy, and removed the furniture, such as it was, to their new
residence. Nor was Mat, upon the whole, displeased at what had happened;
for he was now fixed in a flourishing country--fertile and well
cultivated; nay, the bright landscape which his school-house commanded
was sufficient in itself to reconcile him to his situation. The
inhabitants were in comparatively good circumstances; many of them
wealthy, respectable farmers, and capable of remunerating him very
decently for his literary labors; and what was equally flattering, there
was a certainty of his having a numerous and well-attended school in a
neighborhood with whose inhabitants he was acquainted.
Honest, kind-hearted Paddy!--pity that you should ever feel distress or
hunger--pity that you should be compelled to seek, in another land, the
hard-earned pittance by which you keep the humble cabin over your chaste
wife and naked children! Alas! what noble materials for composing a
national character, of which humanity might be justly proud, do the
lower orders of the Irish possess, if raised and cultivated by an
enlightened education! Pardon me, gentle reader, for this momentary
ebullition; I grant I am a little dark now. I assure you, however, the
tear of enthusiastic admiration is warm on my eye-lids, when I remember
the flitches of bacon, the sacks of potatoes, the bags of meal, the
miscowns of butter, and the dishes of eggs--not omitting crate after
crate of turf which came in such rapid succession to Mat Kavanagh,
during the first week on which he opened his school. Ay, and many a
bottle of stout poteen, when
“The eye of the gauger saw it not,”
was, with a sly, good-humored wink, handed over to Mat, or Nancy, no
matter which, from under the comfortable drab jock, with velvet-covered
collar, erect about the honest, ruddy face of a warm, smiling farmer,
or even the tattered frieze of a poor laborer--anxious to secure
the attention of the “masther” to his little “Shoneen,” whom, in the
extravagance of his ambition, he destined to “wear the robes as a
clargy.” Let no man say, I repeat, that the Irish are not fond of
education.
In the course of a month Mat's school was full to the door posts, for,
in fact, he had the parish to himself--many attending from a distance
of three, four, and five miles. His merits, however, were believed to
be great, and his character for learning stood high, though unjustly
so: for a more superficial, and at the same time, a more presuming
dunce never existed; but his character alone could secure him a good
attendance; he, therefore, belied the unfavorable prejudices against
the Findramore folk, which had gone abroad, and was a proof, in his own
person, that the reason of the former schoolmasters' miscarriage lay in
the belief of their incapacity which existed among the people. But Mat
was one of those showy, shallow fellows, who did not lack for assurance.
The first step a hedge schoolmaster took, on establishing himself in
a school, was to write out, in his best copperplate hand, a flaming
advertisement, detailing, at full length, the several branches he
professed himself capable of teaching. I have seen many of these--as who
that is acquainted with Ireland has not?--and, beyond all doubt, if
the persons that issued them were acquainted with the various
heads recapitulated, they must have been buried in the most profound
obscurity, as no man but a walking Encyclopaedia--an admirable
Crichton--could claim an intimacy with them, embracing, as they often
did, the whole circle of human knowledge. 'Tis true, the vanity of the
pedagogue had full scope in these advertisements, as there was none to
bring him to an account, except some rival, who could only attack him
on those practical subjects which were known to both. Independently of
this, there was a good-natured collusion between them on those points
which were beyond their knowledge, inasmuch as they were not practical
but speculative, and by no means involved their character or personal
interests. On the next Sunday, therefore, after Mat's establishment at
Findrainore, you might see a circle of the peasantry assembled at the
chapel door, perusing, with suitable reverence and admiration on their
faces, the following advertisement; or, perhaps, Mat himself, with a
learned, consequential air, in the act of “expounding” it to them.
“Mr. Matthew Kavanagh, Philomath and' Professor of the Learned
Languages, begs leave to inform the Inhabitants of Findramore and' its
vicinity, that he lectures on the following branches of Education, in
his Seminary at the above-recited place:--
“Spelling, Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, upon altogether new
principles, hitherto undiscovered by any excepting himself, and for
which he expects a Patent from Trinity College, Dublin; or, at any
rate, from Squire Johnston, Esq., who paternizes many of the pupils;
Book-keeping, by single and double entry--Geometry, Trigonometry,
Stereometry, Mensuration, Navigation, Guaging, Surveying, Dialling,
Astronomy, Astrology, Austerity, Fluxions, Geography, ancient and
modern--Maps, the Projection of the Sphere--Algebra, the Use of the
Globes, Natural and Moral Philosophy, Pneumatics, Optics, Dioptics,
Catroptics, Hydraulics, Erostatics, Geology, Glorification, Divinity,
Mythology, Medicinality, Physic, by theory only, Metaphysics
practically, Chemistry, Electricity, Galvanism, Mechanics, Antiquities,
Agriculture, Ventilation, Explosion, etc.
“In Classics--Grammar, Cordery, AEsop's Fables, Erasmus' Colloquies,
Cornelius Nepos, Phaedrus, Valerius Maximus, Justin, Ovid, Sallust,
Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, Persius, Terence, Tully's Offices, Cicero,
Manouverius Turgidus, Esculapius, Rogerius, Satanus Nigrus, Quinctilian,
Livy, Thomas Aquinas, Cornelius Agrippa, and Cholera Morbus.
“Greek Grammar, Greek Testament, Lucian, Homer, Sophocles, AEschylus,
Thucydides, Aristophanes, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and the
Works of Alexander the Great; the manners, habits, customs, usages, and
the meditations of the Grecians; the Greek Digamma resolved, Prosody,
Composition, both in prose and verse, and Oratory, in English, Latin and
Greek; together with various other branches of learning and scholastic
profundity--_quoi enumerare longum est_--along with Irish Radically, and
a small taste of Hebrew upon the Masoretic text.
“Matthew Kavanagh, Philomath.” (* See note at the end of this sketch.)
Having posted this document upon the hapel-door, and in all the public
places and cross roads of the parish, Mat considered himself as having
done his duty. He now began to teach, and his school continued to
increase to his heart's content, every day bringing him fresh scholars.
In this manner he flourished till the beginning of winter, when those
boys, who, by the poverty of their parents, had been compelled to go
to service to the neighboring farmers, flocked to him in numbers, quite
voracious for knowledge. An addition was consequently built to the
school-house, which was considerably too small; so that, as Christmas
approached, it would be difficult to find a more numerous or merry
establishment under the roof of a hedge school. But it is time to give
an account of its interior.
The reader will then be pleased to picture to himself such a house as I
have already described--in a line with the hedge; the eave of the back
roof within a foot of the ground behind it; a large hole exactly in the
middle of the “riggin',” as a chimney; immediately under which is an
excavation in the floor, burned away by a large fire of turf, loosely
heaped together. This is surrounded by a circle of urchins, sitting
on the bare earth, stones, and hassocks, and exhibiting a series of
speckled shins, all radiating towards the fire, like sausages on a
Poloni dish. There they are--wedged as close as they can sit; one with
half a thigh off his breeches--another with half an arm off his tattered
coat--a third without breeches at all, wearing, as a substitute, a piece
of his mother's old petticoat, pinned about his loins--a fourth, no
coat--a fifth, with a cap on him, because he has got a scald, from
having sat under the juice of fresh hung bacon--a sixth with a black
eye--a seventh two rags about his heels to keep his kibes clean--an
eighth crying to get home, because he has got a headache, though it may
be as well to hint, that there is a drag-hunt to start from beside his
father's in the course of the day. In this ring, with his legs stretched
in a most lordly manner, sits, upon a deal chair, Mat himself, with
his hat on, basking in the enjoyment of unlimited authority. His dress
consists of a black coat, considerably in want of repair, transferred to
his shoulders through the means of a clothes-broker in the county-town;
a white cravat, round a large stuffing, having that part which comes in
contact with the chin somewhat streaked with brown--a black waistcoat,
with one or two “tooth-an'-egg” metal buttons sewed on where the
original had fallen off--black corduroy inexpressibles, twice dyed, and
sheep's-gray stockings. In his hand is a large, broad ruler, the emblem
of his power, the woful instrument of executive justice, and the signal
of terror to all within his jurisdiction. In a corner below is a pile
of turf, where on entering, every boy throws his two sods, with a hitch
from under his left arm. He then comes up to the master, catches his
forelock with finger and thumb, and bobs down his head, by way of making
him a bow, and goes to his seat. Along the walls on the ground is a
series of round stones, some of them capped with a straw collar or
hassock, on which the boys sit; others have bosses, and many of
them hobs--a light but compact kind of boggy substance found in the
mountains. On these several of them sit; the greater number of them,
however, have no seats whatever, but squat themselves down, without
compunction, on the hard floor. Hung about, on wooden pegs driven into
the walls, are the shapeless yellow “caubeens” of such as can boast the
luxury of a hat, or caps made of goat or hare's skin, the latter having
the ears of the animal rising ludicrously over the temples, or cocked
out at the sides, and the scut either before or behind, according to the
taste or the humor of the wearer. The floor, which is only swept every
Saturday, is strewed over with tops of quills, pens, pieces of broken
slate, and tattered leaves of “Reading made Easy,” or fragments of old
copies. In one corner is a knot engaged at “Fox and Geese,” or the “Walls
of Troy” on their slates; in another, a pair of them are “fighting
bottles,” which consists in striking the bottoms together, and he whose
bottle breaks first, of course, loses. Behind the master is a third set,
playing “heads and points”--a game of pins. Some are more industriously
employed in writing their copies, which they perform seated on the
ground, with their paper on a copy-board--a piece of planed deal, the
size of the copy, an appendage now nearly exploded--their cheek-bones
laid within half an inch of the left side of the copy, and the eye set
to guide the motion of the hand across, and to regulate the straightness
of the lines and the forms of the letters. Others, again, of the more
grown boys, are working their sums with becoming industry. In a dark
corner are a pair of urchins thumping each other, their eyes steadily
fixed on the master, lest he might happen to glance in that direction.
Near the master himself are the larger boys, from twenty-two to
fifteen--shaggy-headed slips, with loose-breasted shirts lying open
about their bare chests; ragged colts, with white, dry, bristling beards
upon them, that never knew a razor; strong stockings on their legs;
heavy brogues, with broad, nail-paved soles; and breeches open at the
knees. Nor is the establishment without a competent number of females.
These were, for the most part, the daughters of wealthy farmers, who
considered it necessary to their respectability, that they should not
be altogether illiterate; such a circumstance being a considerable
drawback, in the opinion of an admirer, from the character of a young
woman for whom he was about to propose--a drawback, too, which was
always weighty in proportion to her wealth or respectability.
Having given our readers an imperfect sketch of the interior of Mat's
establishment, we will now proceed, however feebly, to represent him at
work--with all the machinery of the system in full operation.
“Come, boys, rehearse--(buz, buz, buz)--I'll soon be after calling
up the first spelling lesson--(buz, buz, buz)--then the
mathematicians--book-keepers--Latinists and Grecians, successfully.
(Buz, buz, buz)--Silence there below!--your pens! Tim Casey, isn't this
a purty hour o' the day for you to come into school at; arraix, and what
kept you, Tim? Walk up wid yourself here, till we have a confabulation
together; you see I love to be talking to you.
“Sir, Larry Branagen, here; he's throwing spits at me out of his
pen.”--(Buz, buz, buz.)
“By my sowl, Larry, there's a rod in steep for you.”
“Fly away, Jack--fly away, Jill; come again, Jack--”
“I had to go to Paddy Nowlan's for to-baccy, sir, for my
father.” (Weeping with his hand knowingly across his face--one eye
laughing at his comrades.)--
“You lie, it wasn't.”
“If you call me a liar agin, I'll give you a dig in the mug.”
“It's not in your jacket.”
“Isn't it?”
“Behave yourself; ha! there's the masther looking at you--ye'll get it
now.”--
“None at all, Tim? And she's not after sinding an excuse wid you? What's
that undher your arm?”
“My Grough, sir.”--(Buz, buz, buz.)
“Silence, boys. And, you blackguard Lilliputian, you, what kept you away
till this?”
“One bird pickin', two men thrashin'; one bird pickin', two men
thrashin'; one bird pickin'--”
“Sir, they're stickn' pins in me, here.”
“Who is, Briney?”
“I don't know, sir, they're all at it.”
“Boys, I'll go down to yez.”
“I can't carry him, sir, he'd be too heavy for me: let Larry Toole do
it, he's stronger nor me; any way, there, he's putting a corker pin in
his mouth.” *--(Buz, buz, buz.)
* In the hedge schools it was usual for the unfortunate
culprit about to be punished to avail himself of all
possible stratagems that were calculated to diminish
his punishment. Accordingly, when put upon another
boy's back to be horsed, as it was termed, he slipped a
large pin, called a corker, in his mouth, and on
receiving the first blow stuck it into the neck of the
boy who carried him. This caused the latter to jump and
bounce about in such a manner that many of the blows
directed at his burthen missed their aim. It was an
understood thing, however, that the boy carrying the
felon should aid him in every way in his power, by
yielding, moving', and shifting about, so that it was
only when he seemed to abet the master that the pin was
applied to him.
“Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo--I'll never stay away agin, sir; indeed I won't, sir.
Oh, sir, clear, pardon me this wan time; and if ever you cotch me doing
the like agin, I'll give you lave to welt the sowl out of me.”--(Buz
buz, buz.). “Behave yourself, Barny Byrne.”
“I'm not touching you.”
“Yes, you are; didn't you make me blot my Copy?”
“Ho, by the livin', I'll pay you goin' home for this.”
“Hand me the taws.”
“Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo--what'll I do, at all at all! Oh, sir dear,
sir dear, sir dear--hoo-hoo-hoo.”
“Did she send no message, good or bad, before I lay on?”
“Oh, not a word, sir, only that my father killed a pig yestherday, and
he wants you to go up to-day at dinner-time.”--(Buz, buz, buz.)
“It's time to get lave--it isn't, it is--it isn't, it is,” etc.
“You lie, I say, your faction never was able to fight ours; didn't we
lick all your dirty breed in Builagh-battha fair?”
“Silence there.”--(Buz, buz, buz.)
“Will you meet us on Sathurday, and we'll fight it out clane!”
“Ha-ha-ha! Tim, but you got a big fright, any how: whist, ma bouchal,
sure I was only jokin' you; and sorry I'd be to bate your father's son,
Tim. Come over, and sit beside myself at the fire here. Get up, Micky
Donoghue, you big, burnt-shinn'd spalpeen you, and let the dacent boy
sit at the fire.”
“Hulabaloo hoo-hoo-hoo--to go to give me such a welt, only for sitting
at the fire, and me brought turf wid me.”
“To-day, Tim?”
“Yes, sir.”
“At dinner time, is id?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Faith, the dacent strain was always in the same family.”--(Buz, buz,
buz.)--
“Horns, horns, cock horns: oh, you up'd vrid them, you lifted your
fingers--that's a mark, now--hould your face, till I blacken you!”
“Do you call thim two sods, Jack Laniran? why, 'tis only one long one
broke in the middle; but you must make it up tomorrow. Jack, how is your
mother's tooth?--did she get it pulled out yet?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, tell her to come to me, and I'll write a charm for it, that'll
cure her.--What kept you' till now, Paddy Magouran?”
“Couldn't come any sooner, sir.”
“You couldn't, sir--and why, sir, couldn't you come any sooner', sir?”
“See, sir, what Andy Nowlan done to my copy.”--(Buz, buz, buz.)--
“Silence, I'll massacree yez if yez don't make less noise.”--(Buz, buz,
buz.)
“I was down with Mrs. Kavanagh, sir.”
“You were, Paddy--an' Paddy, ma bouchal, what war you doing there,
Paddy?”
“Masther, sir, spake to Jem Kenny here; he made my nose bleed.”--
“Eh, Paddy?”
“I was br ingin' her a layin' hen, sir, that my mother promised her at
mass on Sunday last.”
“Ah, Paddy, you're a game bird, yourself, wid your layin' hens; you're
as full o' mischief as an egg's full o' mate--(omnes--ha, ha, ha,
ha!)--Silence, boys--what are you laughin' at?--ha, ha, ha!--Paddy, can
you spell Nebachodnazure for me?”
“No, sir.”
“No, nor a better scholar, Paddy, could not do that, ma bouchal; but
I'll spell it for you. Silence, boys--whist, all of yez, till I spell
Nebachodnazure for Paddy Magouran. Listen; and you yourself, Paddy, are
one of the letthers:
A turf and a clod spells Nebachod--
A knife and a razure, spells Nebachodnazure--
Three pair of boots and five pair of shoes--
Spells Nebachodnazure, the king of the Jews.'
Now, Paddy, that's spelling Nebachodnazure by the science of
Ventilation; but you'll never go that deep, Paddy.”--
“I want to go out, if you plase, sir.”
“Is that the way you ax me, you vagabone?”
“I want to go out, sir,”--(pulling down the fore lock.)
“Yes, that's something dacenter; by the sowl of Newton, that invinted
fluxions, if ever you forgot to make a bow again, I'll nog the enthrils
out of you--wait till the Pass comes in.”
Then comes the spelling lesson. “Come, boys, stand up to the spelling
lesson.”
“Mickey,” says one urchin, “show me your book, till I look at my word.
I'm fifteenth.”
“Wait till I see my own.”
“Why do you crush for?”
“That's my place.”
“No, it's not.”
“Sir, spake to---------I'll tell the masther.”
“What's the matther there?”
“Sir, he won't let me into my place.”
“I'm before you.”
“No you're not.”
“I say, I am.”
“You lie, pug-face: ha! I called you pug-face, tell now if you dare.”
“Well boys, down with your pins in the book: who's king?”
“I am, sir.”
“Who's queen?”
“Me, sir.”
“Who's prince?”
“I am prince, sir.”
“Tag rag and bob-tail, fall into your places.”
“I've no pin, sir.”
“Well down with you to the tail----now, boys.” *
* At the spelling lesson the children were obliged to
put down each a pin, he who held the first place got
them all with the exception of the queen--that is the
boy who held the second place! who got two; and the
prince, the third who got one. The last boy in the
class was called Bobtail.
Having gone through the spelling-task, it was Mat's custom to give out
six hard words selected according to his judgment--as a final test;
but he did not always confine himself to that. Sometimes he would put a
number of syllables arbitrarily together, forming a most heterogeneous
combination of articulate sounds.
“Now, boys, here's a deep word, that'll thry yez: come Larry
spell me-mo-man-dran-san-ti-fi-can-du-ban-dan-li-al-i-ty, or
mis-an-thro-po-mor-phi-ta-ni-a-nus-mi-ca-li-a-lioy;--that's too hard
for you, is it? Well, then, spell phthisic. Oh, that's physic you're
spellin'. Now, Larry, do you know the difference between physic and
phthisic?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, I'll expound it: phthisic, you see, manes--whisht, boys: will
yez hould yer tongues there--phthisic, Larry, signifies--that is,
phthisic--mind, it's not physic I'm expounding, but phthisic--boys, will
yez stop yer noise there--signifies----but, Larry, it's so deep a
word in larnin' that I should draw it out on a slate for you. And now I
remimber, man alive, you're not far enough on yet to understand it: but
what's physic, Larry?”
“Isn't that sir, what my father tuck the day he got sick, sir?”
“That's the very thing, Larry: it has what larned men call a
medical property, and resembles little ricketty Dan Reilly there--it
retrogrades. Och! Och! I'm the boy that knows things--you see now how I
expounded them two hard words for yez, boys--don't yez?”
“Yes, sir,” etc., etc.
“So, Larry, you haven't the larnin' for that either: but here's an
'asier one--spell me Ephabridotas (Epaphroditas)--you can't! hut!
man--you're a big dunce, entirely, that little shoneen Sharkey there
below would _sack_. God be wid the day when I was the likes of you--it's
I that was the bright gorsoon entirely--and so sign was on it, when
a great larned traveler--silence boys, till I tell yez this [a dead
silence]--from Thrinity College, all the way in Dublin, happened to meet
me one day--seeing the slate and Gough, you see, undher my arm, he axes
me--' Arrah, Mat,' says he, 'what are you _in_?' says he. 'Faix, I'm
in my breeches, for one thing,' says I, off hand--silence childhre,
and don't laugh so loud--(ha, ha, ha!) So he looks closer at me: 'I see
that,' says he; 'but what are you reading?' 'Nothing at all at all,'
says I; 'bad manners to the taste, as you may see, if you've your
eyesight.' 'I think,' says he, 'you'll be apt to die in your breeches;'
and set spurs to a fine saddle mare he rid--faith, he did so--thought me
so cute--(omnes--ha, ha, ha!) Whisht, boys, whisht; isn't it a terrible
thing that I can't tell yez a joke, but you split your sides laughing at
it--(ha, ha, ha!)--don't laugh so loud, Barney Casey.”--(ha, ha, ha!)
_Barney_.--“I want to go out, if you plase, sir.”
“Go, avick, you'll be a good scholar yet, Barney. Faith, Barney knows
whin to laugh, any how.”