The words of the text are thus settled, and you have heard my explanation of it all. Now for the application. Last Thursday was a week since the fair of Bartlemy, and I went down there to buy a horse, for this is a large parish, and mortification and fretting has puffed me up so, that, God help me, 'tis little able I am to walk about to answer all the sick calls, to say nothing of stations, weddings, and christenings. Well, I bought the horse, and it cost me more than I expected, so that there I stood without a copper in my pocket after I had paid the dealer. It rained cats and dogs, and as I am so poor that I can't afford to buy a great coat, I got wet to the skin, in less than no time. There you were, scores of you, in the public houses, with the windows up, that all the world might see you eating and drinking as if it was for a wager. And there was not one of you who had the grace to ask, "Father Prout, have you got a mouth in your face?" And there I might have stood in the rain until this blessed hour (that is, supposing it had continued raining until now), if I had not been picked up by Mr. 'Mun Roche, of Kildinan, an honest gentleman, and a hospitable man I must say, though he is a Protestant.[12] He took me home with him, and there, to your eternal disgrace, you villains, I got as full as a tick, and 'Mun had to send me home in his own carriage—which is an everlasting shame to all of you, who belong to the true Church.
Now, I ask which has carried out the text? You who did not give me even a poor tumbler of punch, when I was like a drowned rat at Bartlemy, or 'Mun Roche, who took me home, and filled me with the best of eating and drinking, and sent me to my own house, after that, in his own elegant carriage? Who best fulfilled the Scripture? Who lent to the Lord, by giving to his poor Clergy? Remember, a time will come when I must give a true account of you:—what can I say then? Won't I have to hang down my head in shame, on your account? 'Pon my conscience, it would not much surprise me, unless you greatly mend your ways, if 'Mun Roche and you won't have to change places on that occasion: he to sit alongside of me, as a friend who had treated the poor Clergy well in this world, and you in a certain place, which I won't particularly mention now, except to hint that 'tis little frost or cold you'll have in it, but quite the contrary. However, 'tis never too late to mend, and I hope that by this day week, it's quite another story I'll have to tell of you all.—Amen.
[IRISH DANCING-MASTERS.]
Five-and-twenty years ago, when I left Ireland, the original or aboriginal race of country dancing-masters was nearly extinct. By this time, I presume, it has almost died out. Here and there a few may be seen,
"Rari nantes in gurgite vasto,"
but the light-heeled, light-hearted, jovial, genial fellows who were actual Masters of the Revels in the district to which they respectively belonged, are nowhere.
There used to be as much pride (and property) in a village dancing-master as in a village schoolmaster, in my young days, and I have heard of "many accidents by flood and field," caused by attempts to remove a dancing-master or a pedagogue, of high reputation, from one district to another. In such cases, the very abduction being the strongest possible compliment to his renown, the person who was "enticed away by force," always made a point of offering no resistance, and would passively and proudly await the result. Indeed, care was always taken that such removal should be actual preferment, as, to ameliorate his condition, the residence provided for him in the new village, township, or barony, was always better than that from which he was removed.
As a general rule, the abduction, of schoolmasters was a favorite practice in Kerry—where every man and boy is supposed to speak Latin[13]—while stolen dancing-masters did not abound in the neighbouring counties of Cork and Limerick. The natural inference is that the County Kerry-men preferred the culture of the head, while the others rather cared for the education of the heels.
To have a first-rate hedge-schoolmaster was a credit to any parish. To have engrossed the services of an eminent maître de danse was almost a matter of considerable pride and boasting, but to possess both of these treasures was indeed a triumph.
There was more pride, perhaps, in having a schoolmaster of great repute—more pleasure in owning a dancer of high renown. The book-man was never known to dance, and the village Vestris was rarely able to write his name. Thus they never clashed. One ruled by day, and the other had unquestioned sovereignty in the hours between dusk and dawn.