Read Ebook: Going to Maynooth Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry The Works of William Carleton Volume Three by Carleton William Flanery M L Illustrator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 749 lines and 52392 words, and 15 pages

Illustrator: M. L. Flanery

TRAITS AND STORIES OF THE IRISH PEASANTRY

BY WILLIAM CARLETON

GOING TO MAYNOOTH.

Young Denis O'Shaughnessy was old Denis's son; and old Denis, like many great men before him, was the son of his father and mother in particular, and a long line of respectable ancestors in general. He was, moreover, a great historian, a perplexing controversialist, deeply read in Dr. Gallagher and Pastorini, and equally profound in the history of Harry the Eighth, and Luther's partnership with the devil. Denis was a tall man, who, from his peculiar appearance, and the nature of his dress, a light drab-colored frieze, was nicknamed the Walking Pigeon-house; and truly, on seeing him at a distance, a man might naturally enough hit upon a worse comparison. He was quite straight, carried both his arms hanging by his sides, motionless and at their full length, like the pendulums of a clock that has ceased going. In his head, neck, and chest there was no muscular action visible; he walked, in fact, as if a milk-pail were upon his crown, or as if a single nod of his would put the planets out of order. But the principal cause of the similarity lay in his roundness, which resembled that of a pump, running to a point, or the pigeon-house aforesaid, which is still better.

Denis, though a large man, was but a small farmer, for he rented only eighteen acres of good land. His family, however, like himself, was large, consisting of thirteen children, among whom Denis junior stood pre-eminent. Like old Denis, he was exceedingly long-winded in argument, pedantic as the schoolmaster who taught him, and capable of taking a very comprehensive grasp of any tangible subject.

Young Denis's display of controversial talents was so remarkably precocious, that he controverted his father's statements upon all possible subjects, with a freedom from embarrassment which promised well for that most distinguished trait in a controversialist--hardihood of countenance. This delighted old Denis to the finger ends.

"Dinny, if he's spared," he would say, "will be a credit to us all yet. The sorra one of him but's as manly as anything, and as longheaded as a four-footed baste, so he is! nothing daunts or dashes him, or puts him to an amplush: but he'll look you in the face so stout an' cute, an' never redden or stumble, whether he's right or wrong, that it does one's heart good to see him. Then he has such a laning to it, you see, that the crathur 'ud ground an argument on anything, thin draw it out to a norration an' make it as clear as rock-water, besides incensing you so well into the rason of the thing, that Father Finnerty himself 'ud hardly do it betther from the althar."

The highest object of an Irish peasant's ambition is to see his son a priest. Whenever a farmer happens to have a large family, he usually destines one of them for the church, if his circumstances are at all such as can enable him to afford the boy a proper education. This youth becomes the centre in which all the affections of the family meet. He is cherished, humored in all his caprices, indulged in his boyish predilections, and raised over the heads of his brothers, independently of all personal or relative merit in himself. The consequence is, that he gradually became self-willed, proud, and arrogant, often to an offensive degree; but all this is frequently mixed up with a lofty bombast, and an under-current of strong disguised affection, that render his early life remarkably ludicrous and amusing. Indeed, the pranks of pedantry, the pretensions to knowledge, and the humor with which it is mostly displayed, render these scions of divinity, in their intercourse with the people until the period of preparatory education is completed, the most interesting and comical class, perhaps, to be found in the kingdom. Of these learned priestlings young Denis was undoubtedly a first-rate specimen. His father, a man of no education, was, nevertheless, as profound and unfathomable upon his favorite subjects as a philosopher; but this profundity raised him mightily in the opinion of the people, who admired him the more the less they understood him.

When young Denis had reached the age of sixteen or seventeen, he was looked upon by his father and his family, as well as by all their relations in general, as a prodigy. It was amusing to witness the delight with which the worthy man would call upon his son to exhibit his talents, a call to which the son instantly attended. This was usually done by commencing a mock controversy, for the gratification of some neighbor to whom the father was anxious to prove the great talents of his son. When old Denis got the young sogarth fairly in motion, he gently drew himself out of the dispute, but continued a running comment upon the son's erudition, pointed out his good things, and occasionally resumed the posture of the controversialist to reinspirit the boy if he appeared to flag.

"Dinny, abouchal, will you come up till Phadrick Murray hears you arguin' Scripthur wid myself, Dinny. Now, Phadrick, listen, but keep your tongue sayin' nothin'; just lave us to ourselves. Come up, Dinny, till you have a hate at arguin' wid myself."

"Fadher, I condimnate you at once--I condimnate you as being a most ungrammatical ould man, an' not fit to argue wid any one that knows Murray's English Grammar, an' more espaciously the three concords of Lily's Latin one; that is the cognation between the nominative case and the verb, the consanguinity between the substantive and the adjective, and the blood-relationship that irritates between the relative and the antecedent."

"That's a good boy, Dinny; but why would you blush for my ignorance, avourneen? Take care of yourself now an' spake deep, for I'll outargue you at the heel o' the hunt, cute as you are."

"Why do I blush for your ignorance, is it? Why thin, I'm sure I have sound rasons for it; only think of the gross persivarance wid which you call that larned work, the Lexicon in Greek, a neck-suggan. Fadher, never, attimpt to argue or display your ignorance wid me again. But, moreover, I can probate you to be an ungrammatical man from your own modus of argument."

"Go an, avourneen. Phadrick!!"

"I'm listenin'. The sorra's no match for his cuteness, an' one's puzzled to think where he can get it all."

"Why, you don't know at all what I could do by larnin'. It would be no throuble to me to divide myself into two halves, an' argue the one agin the other."

"You would, in throth, Dinny."

"Ay, father, or cut myself acrass, an' dispute my head, maybe, agin my heels."

"Throth, would you!"

"Or practise logic wid my right hand, and bate that agin wid my left."

"The sarra lie in it."

"Or read the Greek Tistament wid my right eye, an thranslate it at the same time wid my left, according to the Greek an' English sides of my face, wid my tongue constrein' into Irish, unknownst to both o' them."

"Why, Denis, he must have a head like a bell to be able to get into things."

"Throth an' he has that, an' 'ill make a noise in conthroversy yet, if he lives. Now, Dinny, let us have a hate at histhory."

"A hate at histhory?--wid all my heart; but before we begin, I tell you that I'll confound you precipitately; for you see, if you bate me in the English, I'll scarify you wid Latin, and give you a bang or two of Greek into the bargain. Och! I wish you'd hear the sackin' I gave Tom Reilly the other day; rubbed him down, as the masther says, wid a Greek towel, an' whenever I complimented him with the loan of a cut on the head, I always gave him a plaster of Latin to heal it; but the sorra worse healin' flesh in the world than Tom's is for the Latin, so I bruised a few Greek roots and laid them to his caput so nate, that you'd laugh to see him. Well is it histhory we are to begin wid? If it is, come on--advance. I'm ready for you--in protection--wid my guards up."

"Ha, ha, ha! Well, if he isn't the drollest crathur, an' so cute! But now for the histhory. Can you prove to me, upon a clear foundation, the differ atween black an' white, or prove that Phadrick Murray here, long life to him, is an ass? Now, Phadrick, listen, for you must decide betune us."

"Orra, have you no other larnin' than that to argue upon? Sure if you call upon me to decide, I must give it agin Dinny. Why my judgment won't be worth a hap'orth, if he makes an ass of me!"

"What matther how you decide, man alive, if he proves you to be one; sure that is all we want. Never heed shakin' your head--listen an' it will be well worth your while. Why, man, you'll know more nor you ever knew or suspected before, when he proves you to be an ass."

"In the first place, fadher, you're ungrammatical in one word; instead of sayin' 'prove,' always say probate, or probe; the word is descended, that is, the ancisthor of it, is probo, a deep Greek word--probo, probas, prob-ass, that is to say, I'm to probe Phadrick here to be an ass. Now, do you see how pat I brought that in? That's the way, Phadrick, I chastise my fadher with the languages."

"In throth it is; go an avick. Phadrick!"

"I'm listenin'."

"Phadrick, do you know the differ atween black an' white'?"

"Atween black an' white? Hut, gorsoon, to be sure I do."

"Well, an' what might it be, Phadrick, my larned Athiop? What might it be, I negotiate?"

"Why, thin, the differ atween them is this, Dinny, that black is--let me see--why--that black is not red--nor yallow--nor brown--nor green--nor purple--not cut-beard--nor a heather color--nor a grog-ram"--

"Nor a white?"

"Surely, Dinny, not a white, abouchal; don't think to come over me that way."

"But I want to know what color it is, most larned sager."

"All rasonable, Dinny, Why, thin, black is--let me see--hut, death alive!--it's--a--a--why, it's black, an' that's all I can say about it; yes, faix, I can--black is the color of Father Curtis's coat."

"An' what color is that, Phadrick?"

"Why, it's black, to be sure."

"Well, now, what color is white, Phadrick?"

"Why, it's a snow-color: for all the world the color of snow."

"White is?"

"Ay, is it."

"The dear help your head, Phadrick, if that's all you know about snow. In England, man, snow is an Oxford gray, an' in Scotland, a pepper an' salt, an' sometimes a cut-beard, when they get a hard winther. I found that much in the Greek, any way, Phadrick. Thry agin, you imigrant, I'll give you another chance--what color is white?"

"Why, thin, it's--white--an' nothin' else. The sorra one but you'd puzzle a saint wid your long-headed screwtations from books."

"So, Phadrick, your preamble is, that white is white, an' black is black?"

"Asy avick. I said, sure enough, that white is white; but the black I deny--I said it was the color of Father Curtis's black coat."

"Oh, you barbarian of the world, how I scorn your profundity an' emotions! You're a disgrace to the human sex by your superciliousness of knowledge, an' your various quotations of ignorance. Ignorantia, Phadrick, is your date an' superscription. Now, stretch out your ears, till I probate, or probe to you the differ atween black an' white."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet