The agitation of spirits produced by Jemmy's cheering interview with the Bishop was, for three days afterwards, somewhat prejudicial to his convalescence. In less than a week, however, he was comfortably settled with Mr. O'Rorke's family, whose kindness proved to him quite as warm as he had expected.
When he had remained with them a few days, he resolved to recommence his studies under his tyrant master. He certainly knew that his future attendance at the school would be penal to him, but he had always looked forward to the accomplishment of his hopes as a task of difficulty and distress. The severity to be expected from the master could not, he thought, be greater than that which he had already suffered; he therefore decided, if possible, to complete his education under him.
The school, when Jemmy appeared in it, had been for more than an hour assembled, but the thinness of the attendance not only proved the woful prevalence of sickness and distress in the parish, but sharpened the pedagogue's vinegar aspect into an expression of countenance singularly peevish and gloomy. When the lad entered, a murmur of pleasure and welcome ran through the scholars, and joy beamed forth from every countenance but that of his teacher. When the latter noticed this, his irritability rose above restraint, and he exclaimed:—
“Silence! and apply to business, or I shall cause some of you to denude immediately. No school ever can prosper in which that hirudo, called a poor scholar, is permitted toleration. I thought, sarra, I told you to nidificate and hatch your wild project undher some other wing than mine.”
“I only entrate you,” replied our poor hero, “to suffer me to join the class I left while I was sick, for about another year. I'll be very quiet and humble, and, as far as I can, will do everything you wish me.”
“Ah! you are a crawling reptile,” replied the savage, “and, in my opinion, nothing but a chate and impostor. I think you have imposed yourself upon Mr. O'Brien for what you are not; that is, the son of an honest man. I have no doubt, but many of your nearest relations died after having seen their own funerals. Your mother, you runagate, wasn't your father's wife, I'll be bail.”
The spirit of the boy could bear this no longer; his eyes flashed, and his sinews stood out in the energy of deep indignation.
“It is false,” he exclaimed; “it is as false as your own cruel and cowardly heart, you wicked and unprincipled tyrant! In everything you have said of my father, mother, and friends, and of myself, too, you are' a liar, from the hat on your head to the dirt undher your feet—a liar, a coward, and a villain!”
The fury of the miscreant was ungovernable:—he ran at the still feeble lad, and, by a stroke of his fist, dashed him senseless to the earth. There were now no large boys in the school to curb his resentment, he therefore kicked him in the back when he fell. Many voices exclaimed in alarm—“Oh, masther! sir; don't kill him! Oh, sir! dear, don't kill him! Don't kill poor Jemmy, sir, an' him still sick!”
“Kill him!” replied the master; “kill him, indeed! Faith, he'd be no common man who could kill him; he has as many lives in him as a cat! Sure, he can live behind a ditch, wid the faver on his back, wid-out dying; and he would live if he was stuck on the spire of a steeple.”