Well, by this time, you must be pretty well acquainted with Bat,—and, may be, tired of him; but wait till you hear what happened him.—Many months, but not a year, after Bat had his fortune tould in the manner I mentioned, we'd a poor scholar—a stripling of sixteen or so—with us here, for two, or it might be, three days, at the most. Good luck follow him! He was a lad we all loved, high and low,—and it's not very high the best of us is, sure enough,—for the boy behaved beautifully, though he'd a spice of the wag in him—And why not?—wasn't he young?—and isn't young days the best of days with us? And if we ar'n't merry then, when will we, I'd like to know?
Bat didn't like the poor scholar, and used to abuse him, because he convinced us all he knew more of the geography of foreign parts than Bat, who had been among them, as he said. And the night before the lad left us, Bat threatened to baste him, for smiling while he was preaching about the Muggleburgh arms, and bewailing the state of his digestive organs: and he would too, if it was not for this crutch of mine, and Mick Maguire's gun, and the piper of Drogheda's wooden leg, and one or two other impediments;—not to mention a feeling of goodness that came over him then in the poor scholar's favour;—for if Bat's a bully and a cormorant, he hasn't a bad heart, when all comes to all:—but the poor scholar didn't forget it to him.
The next morning, those who were up, and passed by Bat's door before he was awake, saw as fine a coat of arms figured out with chalk upon it, as the best of the Muggleburghs, in the height of their glory,—if ever they had any,—could well wish to look upon. And could any one thing suit Bat better?—Faith! then, nothing in the wide world. In the middle, was a dish instead of a shield, with a fat goose—Bat's favourite food—quartered upon it; and each side of the dish, what do you think there was, but a knife and fork for supporters; and, to crown all, perched upon the top was a swallow, for a crest! Then, at the foot, there was a table-cloth finely festooned, and words written upon it, by way of motto, which ran thus:—“Boroo edax rerum?” I remember them very well: first, there was Boroo; then came the name of my lady's steward, Misther Dax, with a little e before it;—then, after a blank, followed a re; and it ended, like a slave-driver's dinner, with rum:—Boroo edax rerum;—signifying, as the worthy coadjutor informed us, that Bat, like ould father Time, who takes a tower for his lunch, and a city for his supper, was a devourer of all things. The hand that can draw could make its master understood, where the tongue that spakes seven languages couldn't do a ha'p'orth; or so thinks Jimmy Fitzgerald,—that's me. Now, though we couldn't make out the motto, all of us down to the boys themselves knew what the figures of the goose, and the swallow, and so forth, stood for; and great was the shouting but Bat had a glass in his head, and didn't wake.
By-and-by, down he came with the pipe in his mouth; and, suspecting nothing at all, shut the door after him, and leaned his back against it as usual. When his backy was smoked, he threw away his pipe with an air, and strutted off through the place; and, behold! there was the chalk from the door on him, and he, not knowing it, bearing his arms on his own coat. Will I tell you how many boys and girls he had at his tail in ten minutes?—
I couldn't, without reckoning every living soul of them, within half-a-mile of this, or I would. For a long time, Bat didn't know what it was all about, and looked before and both sides of him to find out where the fun was, but he couldn't. “Look behind you!” says somebody. Bat looked, and there was the boys and girls laughing, and that was all: so he wint on again.
This couldn't last long though. After awhile Bat found out what made the boys follow him, as the little birds do the cuckoo; and then his rage wasn't little:—describe it I won't, for I can't; but I'll tell you what he did:—he suspected the scholar had played him that trick,—which was the truth,—and he found out which road he took; and you'll be sorry to hear he soon came within sight of his satchel.
Whether the boy heard Bat blowing and blustering I don't know, but he luckily glanced behind him, and seeing Bat and his big stick, did what any one in his place would, if he could,—put a hedge between him and his enemy. Bat followed him, vowing vengeance in the shape of a great basting, from one field to another; until, in the end,—he didn't know how,—he found he'd lost the boy, and discovered the prudence of taking to his heels himself; for there he was, in the midst of a meadow, and a fine, fierce-looking bull making up to him at a fast trot. Seeing this, Bat began to make calculations, and perfectly satisfied himself that before he could reach the hedge he came over, the bull would come up with him, and, in all probability, attack his rear. Bat couldn't very well like this: there wasn't much time for pros and cons with him; so he threw his stick at the beast, and away he wint, at a great rate towards a gate he saw in the nearest corner of the field. Though the bull wasn't far behind him, he contrived to reach and climb up the gate-post without being harmed but, musha!—what did he see, think you, when he got there?—
If ever man was in a dilemma, it was Bat. The gate led into the yard before young Pierce Veogh's kennel, and just below Bat, was a brace of as promising dogs for a bull-bait as you'd like to see, trying all they could to get a snap at Bat's leg, that was hanging their side of the gate-post. The dogs looked, and really were, more furious than usual,—which was needless for it happened to be just at the time when Pierce was away in the safe custody of Timberleg the bailiff, and they weren't fed in his absence quite so regularly as they'd wish. Bat knew this; and, thinks he, they'd make but little bones of a man of my weight, if they had me;—so that it wouldn't have been wise in him to have ventured into the yard. The gate wint close up to the garden-wall. But there was three impediments to Bat's going that way first, the gate was well spiked; next, if he didn't mind that, one of the dogs could reach him aisily from the top of their kennel as he passed; thirdly and lastly, if he defied the spikes, and escaped with a bite or two, and got to the garden-wall, there was a board, with “steel-traps” and so forth, staring in the face of him. And what other way had he of getting off?—Divil a one but two. One was, by dropping into the meadow again and that he might do well enough, but for the bull, who was bellowing below to get a rush at him;—the other, I think, was jumping off the post into the stream, upon the edge of which it was planted. The water wasn't wide, but it was deep, and Bat couldn't swim: and there he was, depend upon it, in as nice a dilemma as man had need be.—If you don't credit what I say, draw a map of his position as he sat on the post with the beasts on both sides, the spikes behind, and the water before him, and then tell me what you think.
Bat bellowed, and so did the bull, and the noises wint for one, and the dogs barked, but nobody came. By-and-by Bat saw a figure walking along the opposite bank, and who should it be but the ould cunning-woman! “Is that yourself, Bat?” says she.
“I think it is;—worse luck!” says he.