Once every quarter he set off in his mule-cart for Killarney to draw his pension. On these occasions I used to notice that his voice on his return sounded a little thick, and his face generally appeared flushed. But the next day all would be the same as usual. At the time I fancied that the exertion of the journey had been too much for him, or that the excitement of meeting some old comrades (there were three other Peninsula heroes in the town) had overcome him. He had been a great ally of my poor father’s in earlier days, and to my mother he was equally attached. With all his stories of wars and fighting his heart was true and gentle. He was fond of all animals, knew the notes of every bird, and could tell the names of the trees in the wood, or the wild flowers by the river side. He was my outdoor schoolmaster. I learned from him many a pleasant lesson, and many a useful one too.
But I had another schoolmaster at this time. A mile down the glen from our cottage stood the priest’s house, next to our own cabin-cottage the most comfortable residence in Glencar. In summer the old man was usually to be found in his garden, in winter in his little parlour, always buried in some old volume from his well-stored shelves.
His had been a curious career. His early student days had been passed in an old French city. In middle age he had been a missionary in the East, and at last he had taken charge of the wild district of Glencar, and settled down to the simple life of parish priest. Here he lived in the memory of his past life. Nearly half a century had gone since last his eyes had rested on the vine-clad slopes of the Loire, but it was ever an easy task to him to fling back his thoughts across that gulf of time, and to recall the great names that had risen in the sunrise of the century, and flashed such a glory over Europe that the lustre of succeeding time has shone faint and dim in contrast. He had seen the great emperor review his guards in the courtyard of the Tuileries, and had looked upon a group of horsemen that had in it Murat, Ney, Soult, Lannes, and Massena. How he used to revel in such memories! and what point such experience lent to the theme! He never tired talking of the great campaigns of the Consulate and Empire. I followed him in these reminiscences with rapt eagerness; the intensity of my interest gave increased ardour to his narrative, and many a winter’s night sped rapidly while the old man, seated before his turf fire, rambled on from battle-field to battle-field, now describing to me the wonderful strategy of some early campaign in Italy, now carrying my mind into the snows of Russia, and again taking me back into the plains of France, to that last and most brilliant effort of warlike genius, the campaign of 1814.
At such times, the storm among the mountains would sometimes lend its roar in fitting accompaniment to the old man’s story, and then the scene would change to my mind’s eye as I listened. The little parlour would fade away, the firelight became a bivouac, and I saw in the grim outside darkness of the glen figures dimly moving; the squadrons charged; the cannon rumbled by; and the pine-tops swaying in the storm, were the bearskin caps of the old Guard, looming above smoke and fire!
Such were my schoolmasters; such the lessons they taught me.
The years passed quickly away. Notwithstanding my strong love of outdoor life, I devoted a good many hours every day to reading and study, and by the time I was fifteen years of age I had contrived to master a curious amount of general knowledge, particularly of history and geography, such as does not usually fall to the lot of boys of that age. I had a slight knowledge of Latin, was tolerably well acquainted with French, knew the habits, customs, and limits on every nation and tribe under the sun, and could travel the globe in fancy with few errors of time, distance, and position.
One companion I had in all these years who has not yet been mentioned—poor Donogh Driscoll, a wild and ragged boy, two years my junior.
In every adventure, in every expedition among the hills, Donogh was my attendant. He it was who used to wade into the reeds of Meelagh river to catch gudgeon for the baits for my night-lines in the Carragh; he carried my bag, later on, when my shooting time came; he marked with clear eye the long flight of the grouse pack down the steep slope of Coolrue; he brought me tidings of wild duck feeding on the pools and ponds amid the hills; he knew the coming of the wild geese to the lonely waste that lay beyond Lough Acoose; he would watch the pools in the Carragh river, and knew to a foot where the salmon lay. Faithful companion through all my boyish sports and pastimes, he shared too with me my dreams of enterprise, my hopes of adventure in the big outside world. Often as we sat on some rock high up on the heather-covered side of Seefin, looking out over the vast waste of ocean, he would wonder what it was like over there “beyant the beyant.”
“You wont lave me here alone by myself, when you go away, sir?” he used to say to me. “It’s lonely I’d be thin entirely.”