After breakfast,—‘Come,’ said Eugene, ‘as I have nothing very particular to do, I will conduct you over the classic ground in the neighbourhood, and as Mary possesses the amor patria in so eminent a degree, she will accompany us, and describe all its beauties, lay open the arcana of every fairy mount, read you long lectures on the good people, their midnight gambols and mischievous freaks; show you the stream over which the Banshee raises her ominous howl, as a prelude to the death of a M’Carthy, or describe the form and properties of Cluricaunes, Phookas, Fetches, &c. &c., for she is deeply learned in fairy lore.’
‘Never mind him,’ said Mary, ‘few people delight more in hearing these fairy legends than Eugene himself.’
Having set out on our ramble, about a mile from the house, near a small village, (if a few cottar houses deserved the name,) we passed a well, over which hung a bush covered with white linen rags. Having expressed my surprise at such an unusual thing, ‘This is one of our holy wells,’ said Mary, ‘to which the country people resort, who are troubled with sore eyes, each bringing a linen rag to wash them, and leaving it as an oblation, hanging on the bush.’
On reaching the houses, Eugene stopped us in front of one, the roof of which had fallen in.
CHAPTER XII.
THE VILLAGE SCHOOL.
‘This is all that remains of our village school. Here, in his noisy mansion, sat Phil. Sullivan, wielding his birch as if it had been a sceptre, while his little subjects were ranged around on benches formed of sods, that you may still see along the wall. The fire, when any was required, was made in the centre of the apartment, the fuel being furnished by each scholar daily bringing a turf with him. The door was formed of stakes interlaced with wattles, a loop of which thrown over a crooked nail served the purpose of a lock, and a rude table that the master sat at was all the desk in his school. As they came in at the door, the urchins were obliged to make their best bow, by drawing back the left leg, catching the tuft of hair that hung over the forehead, and bringing their stiff necks to the precise mathematical curve that constituted politeness; while Phil. sat in the middle, sometimes talking English, sometimes Irish, to suit himself to the comprehension of his pupils. As a specimen of the manner in which he accomplished this, I will give you a journal of my first day at school.
‘While the more advanced scholars were conning their tasks, he taught the younger tyros the alphabet—“Come up here, Pat Geehan,” said he to a red-headed boy, dressed in a grey frieze coat, which came down to his heels, and a pair of old leather breeches, that, only reaching half-way down his thighs, exposed his red measled legs,—“Come, stand up here on the table, and let the boys hear how well you can say your letters.”—Pat mounted with great confidence; but when his phiz, by being raised into the light, became more distinctly seen, “Ubbaboo, tearin’ murder!” exclaimed Phil., “where have you been wid that face? why, man alive, you’ve been kissing the prata pot; and your hair, too, stannin’ up for a price, like the bristles of a fighting pig. Is there no water in the stream? and it would have been no great trouble to draw your fingers through your hair any how.”—Pat very composedly lifted up the tail of his coat, and, spitting upon it, gave his face a wipe that left it streaked like a branded cow—“There now,” said Phil., “blow your nose, and hold up your head like a gentleman. What’s this, avick?” said he, pointing to the first letter of the alphabet—Pat scratched his head—“You don’t know what it is?—small blame to you, for your mother keeps you running after the cows, when you should be at your larnin’; but look up at the couples of the house, and try if you can’t remember it.”—“A,” said Pat.—“Well done! What’s the name of the next one?” Pat hesitated again.—“What do you call the big fly that makes the honey?”—“B.”—“Och you’re a genus, Pat, ready made.” So on he went illustrating in this manner, until he came to the letter O. Having tried Pat’s “genus” with it two or three ways to no purpose, Phil. was getting out of patience—“What would you say if I was to hit you a palthog on the ear?” (suiting the action to the word,)—“O!” cried Pat, clapping his hand upon the afflicted spot, which rung with the blow.—“I knew you would find it,” said Phil.—By the help of this admonition Pat struggled through the rest of the letters,—“Well, you may sit down now, and send up Mick Moriarty.”—Mick was rather farther on than Pat—he was spelling words. After spelling two or three tolerably well, he came to the word “what”—“Well, what does w-h-a-t make?”—Mick was not sure about it—“W-h-a-t,” said Phil., “sounds fat; but,” (conscious of his own error in the pronunciation) “when I say fat, don’t you say fat; but do you say fat your own way.”’
‘Eugene is caricaturing,’ said Mary, ‘Phil. Sullivan was scarcely so bad as he represents; although I must confess his mode of instruction was at times rather ludicrous. Yet it was perhaps better suited to the poor children he had to teach, than that of a more refined instructor; and for all his blundering at the English, there was not one in the county a match for him at Latin or Irish.’
‘That is certainly true,’ said Eugene, ‘it was from him I learned the rudiments of Latin, and he has taught it to half the cow-boys in the parish, to keep them, as he said himself, out o’ longin’. This may account in some measure for the acquaintance with Heathen Mythology, which some of our most ignorant poetasters possess, and which is so profusely and sometimes ridiculously made use of in our songs. I do not mean those blundering songs misnamed Irish, that are written by blockheads as utterly ignorant of the idiom of our language, as they appear to be of common sense; but in songs which, though little known out of Ireland, must be familiar to all who have been any time in the country,—such as the following:—A young man meets a pretty girl in a morning, and falling head and ears in love with her at first sight, he breaks out with this rhapsody:—