TRAITS AND STORIES OF THE IRISH PEASANTRY

BY WILLIAM CARLETON

PART VI

List of Illustrations

THE POOR SCHOLAR.

One day about the middle of November, in the year 18—, Dominick M'Evoy and his son Jemmy were digging potatoes on the side of a hard, barren hill, called Esker Dhu. The day was bitter and wintry, the men were thinly clad, and as the keen blast swept across the hill with considerable violence, the sleet-like rain which it bore along pelted into their garments with pitiless severity. The father had advanced into more than middle age; and having held, at a rack-rent the miserable waste of farm which he occupied, he was compelled to exert himself in its cultivation, despite either obduracy of soil, or inclemency of weather. This day, however, was so unusually severe, that the old man began to feel incapable of continuing his toil. The son bore it better; but whenever a cold rush of stormy rain came over them, both were compelled to stand with their sides against it, and their heads turned, so as that the ear almost rested back upon the shoulder in order to throw the rain off their faces. Of each, however, that cheek which was exposed to the rain and storm was beaten into a red hue; whilst the other part of their faces was both pale and hunger-pinched.

The father paused to take breath, and, supported by his spade, looked down upon the sheltered inland which, inhabited chiefly by Prostestants and Presbyterians, lay rich and warm-looking under him.

"Why, thin," he exclaimed to the son—a lad about fifteen,—"sure I know well I oughtn't to curse yez, anyway, you black set! an yit, the Lord forgive me my sins, I'm almost timpted to give yez a volley, an' that from my heart out! Look at thim, Jimmy agra—only look at the black thieves! how warm an' wealthy they sit there in our ould possessions, an' here we must toil till our fingers are worn to the stumps, upon this thievin' bent. The curse of Cromwell on it!—You might as well ax the divil for a blessin', as expect anything like a dacent crop out of it.—Look at thim two ridges!—such a poor sthring o' praties is in it!—one here an' one there—an' yit we must turn up the whole ridge for that same! Well, God sind the time soon, when the right will take place, Jimmy agra!"

"An' doesn't Pasthorini say it? Sure whin Twenty-five comes, we'll have our own agin: the right will overcome the might—the bottomless pit will be locked—ay, double: boulted, if St. Pettier gets the kays, for he's the very boy that will accommodate the heretics wid a warm corner; an' yit, faith, there's: many o' thim that myself 'ud put in a good word for, affcher all."

"Throth, an' here's the same, Jimmy. There's Jack Stuart, an' if there's a cool corner in hell, the same Jack will get it—an' that he may, I pray Gor this day, an' amin. The Lord sind it to him! for he richly desarves it. Kind, neighborly, and frindly, is he an' all belongin' to him; an' I wouldn't be where a hard word 'ud be spoken of him, nor a dog in connection wid the family ill-treated; for which reason may he get a cool corner in hell, I humbly sufflicate."

"What do you think of Jack Taylor? Will he be cosey?"

"Throth, I doubt so—a blessed youth is Jack: yit myself 'ud hardly wish it. He's a heerum-skeemm, divil-may-care fellow, no doubt of it, an' laughs at the priests, which same I'm thinkin' will get him below stairs more nor a new-milk heat, any way; but thin agin, he thrates thim dacent, an' gives thim good dinners, an' they take all this rolliken in good part, so that it's likely he's not in airnest in it, and surely they ought to know best, Jimmy."

"What do you think of Yallow Sam?—honest Sam, that they say was born widout a heart, an' carries the black wool in his ears, to keep out the cries of the widows an' the orphans, that are long rotten in their graves through his dark villany!—He'll get a snug birth!"*

"Yallow Sam," replied the old man, slowly, and a dark shade of intense hatred blackened his weather-beaten countenance, as he looked in the direction from which the storm blew: "'twas he left us where we're standin', Jimmy—undher this blast, that's cowldher an' bittherer nor a step-mother's breath, this cuttin' day! 'Twas he turned us on the wide world, whin your poor mother was risin' out of her faver. 'Twas he squenched the hearth, whin she wasn't able to lave the house, till I carried her in my arms into Paddy Cassidy's—the tears fallin' from my eyes upon her face, that I loved next to God. Didn't he give our farm to his bastard son, a purple Orangeman? Out we went, to the winds an' skies of heaven, bekase the rich bodagh made intherest aginst us. I tould him whin he chated me out o' my fifteen goolden guineas, that his masther, the landlord, should hear of it; but I could never get next or near to him, to make my complaint. Eh? A snug birth! I'm only afeard that hell has no corner hot enough for him—but lave that to the divil himself: if he doesn't give him the best thratement hell can afford, why I'm not here."

"Divil a one o' the ould boy's so bad as they say, father; he gives it to thim hot an' heavy, at all evints."

"Why even if he was at a loss about Sam, depind upon it, he'd get a hint from his betthers above, that 'ud be sarviceable."

"They say he visits him as it is, an' that Sam can't sleep widout some one in the room wid him. Dan Philips says the priest was there, an' had a Mass in every room in the house; but Charley Mack tells me there's no! thruth in it. He was advised to it, he says; but it seems the ould boy has too strong ahoult of him, for Sam said he'd have the divil any time sooner nor the priest, and its likest what he would say."

"Och, och, Jimmy, avick, I'm tir'd out! We had betther give in; the day's too hard, an' there's no use in standin' agin the weather that's in it. Lave the ould villain to God, who he can't chate, any way."

"Well, may our curse go along wid the rest upon him, for dhrivin' us to sich an unnatural spot as this! Hot an' heavy, into the sowl an' marrow of him may it penethrate. An' sure that's no more than all the counthry's wishin' him, whether or not—not to mintion the curses that's risin' out o' the grave agin him, loud an' piercin'!"

"God knows it's not slavin' yourself on sich a day as this you'd be, only for him. Had we kep our farm, you'd be now well an in your larnin' for a priest—an' there 'ud be one o' the family sure to be a gintleman, anyhow; but that's gone too, agra. Look at the smoke, how comfortable it rises from Jack Sullivan's, where the priest