Chapter 1

Produced by David Widger

TRAITS AND STORIES OF THE IRISH PEASANTRY

BY WILLIAM CARLETON

PART V.

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.

Now old Denis was determined that young Denis should tread in his own footsteps; and, sooth to say, young Denis possessed as bright a talent for the dark and mysterious as the father himself. No sooner had the son commenced Latin with the intention of adorning the church, than the father put him in training for controversy. For a considerable time the laurels were uniformly borne away by the veteran: but what will not learning do? Ere long the son got as far as syntax, about which time the father began to lose ground, in consequence of some ugly quotations which the son threw into his gizzard, and which unfortunately stuck there. By and by the father receded more and more, as the son advanced in his Latin and Greek, until, at length, the encounters were only resorted to for the purpose of showing off the son.

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.”

“I tould you, Phadrick!! There's the boy that can rattle off the high English, and the larned Latin, jist as if he was born wid an English Dictionary in one cheek, a Latin Neksuggawn in the other, an Doctor Gallagher's Irish Sarmons nately on the top of his tongue between the two.”

“Fadher, but that unfortunately I am afflicted wid modesty, I'd blush crocus for your ignorance, as Virgil asserts in his Bucolics, _ut Virgilius ait in Bucolids_; and as Horatius, a book that I'm well acquainted wid, says in another place, _Huc pertinent verba_, says he, _commodandi, comparandi, dandi, prornittendi, soluendi imperandi nuntiandi, fidendi, obsequendi, minandi irascendi, et iis contraria_.”

“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.”

“Phadrick!!” said the father.

“I'm listenin'.”

“Now, Phadrick, here's the griddle, an' here's a clane plate. Do you see them here beside one another?”

“I'm lookin' at them.”

“Now, shut your eyes.”

“Is that your way, Denis, of judgin' colors?”

“Shut your eyes, I say, till I give you ocular demonstration of the differ atween these two respectable colors.”

“Well, they're shut.”

“An' keep them so. Now, what differ do you see atween them?”

“The sorra taste, man alive; I never seen anything in my whole life so clearly of a color as they are both this minute.”

“Don't you see now, Phadrick, that there's not the smallest taste o' differ in them, an' that's accordin' to Euclid.”

“Sure enough, I see the divil a taste o' differ atween the two.”

“Well, Phadrick, that's the point settled. There's no discrimination at all atween black an' white. They're both of the same color--so long as you keep your eyes shut.”

“But if a man happens to open his eyes, Dinny?”

“He has no right to open them, Phadrick, if he wants to prove the truth of a thing. I should have said probe--but it does not significate.”

“The heavens mark you to grace, Dinny. You did that in brave style. Phadrick, ahagur, he'll make the darlin' of an arguer whin he gets the robes an him.”

“I don't deny that; he'll be aquil to the best o' thim: still, Denis, I'd rather, whin I want to pronounce upon colors, that he'd let me keep my eyes open.”

“Ay, but he did it out o' the books, man alive; an' there's no goin' beyant thim. Sure he could prove it out of the Divinity, if you went to that. An' what is still more, he could, by shuttin' your eyes, in the same way prove black to be white, an' white black, jist as asy.”

“Surely myself doesn't doubt it. I suppose, by shuttin' my eyes, the same lad could prove anything to me.”

“But, Dinny, avourneen, you didn't prove Phadrick to be an ass yit. Will you do that by histhory, too, Dinny, or by the norrations of Illocution?”

“Father, I'm surprised at your gross imperception. Why, man, if you were not a _rara avis_ of somnolency, a man of most frolicsome determinations, you'd be able to see that I've proved Phadrick to be an ass already.”

“Throth, I deny that you did; there wasn't a word about my bein' an ass, in the last discoorse. It was all upon the differ atween black an' white.”

“Oh, how I scorn your gravity, man! _Ignorantia_, as I said, is your date an' superscription; an' when you die, you ought to go an' engage a stone-cutter to carve you a headstone, an' make him write on it, _Hic jacet Ignorantius Redivicus_. An' the translation of that is, accordin' to Publius Virgilius Maro--'here lies a quadruped who didn't know the differ atween black an' white.'”

“Well, by the livin', Dinny, I dunna where you get all this deep readin'.”

“Sure he gets it all in the Dixonary.”

“Bedad, that Dixonary must be a fine book entirely, to thim that undherstand it.”

“But, Dinny, will you tell Phadrick the Case of Conscience atween Barny Branagan's two goats an' Parra Ghastha's mare?”

“Fadher, if you were a grammarian, I'd castigate your incompatability as it desarves--I'd lay the scourge o' syntax upon you, as no man ever got it since the invintion o' the nine parts of speech. By what rule of logic can you say that aither Barny Branagan's goats or Parra Ghastha's mare had a conscience? I tell you it wasn't they had the conscience, but the divine who decided the difficulty. Phadrick, lie down till I illusthrate.”

“How is that, Dinny? I can hear you sittin'.”

“Lie down, you reptile, or I shall decline the narration altogether.”

“Arra, lie down, Phadrick; sure he only wants to show you the rason o' the thing.”

“Well, well; I'm down. Now Dinny, don't let your feet be too larned, if you plase.”

“Silence!--_taceto!_ you reptile. Now, Phadrick, here, on this side o' you, lies Barny Branagan's field; an' there, on that side, lies a field of Parra Ghastha's; you're the ditch o' mud betuxt them.”

“The ditch o' mud! Faix that's dacent!”

“Now here, on Barny Branagan's side, feeds Parra Ghastha's mare; an' there, on Parra Ghastha's side, feed Barny Branagan's goats. Do you comprehend? Do you insinuate?”

“I do--I do. Death alive! there's no use in punchin' my sides wid your feet that way.”

“Well, get up now an' set your ears.”

“Now listen to him, Phadrick!”

“It was one night in winter, when all nature shone in the nocturnal beauty of tenebrosity: the sun had set about three hours before; an', accordin' to the best logicians, there was a dearth of light. It's the general opinion of philosophers--that is, of the soundest o' them--that when the sun is down the moon an' stars are usually up; an' so they were on the night that I'm narratin' about. The moon was, wid great respect to her character, night-walkin' in the sky; and the stars vegetated in celestial genuflexion around her. Nature, Phadrick, was in great state; the earth was undher our feet, an' the sky above us. The frost, too, was hard, Phadrick, the air keen, an' the grass tendher. All things were enrobed wid verisimilitude an' scrupulosity. In this manner was the terraqueous part of our system, when Parra Ghastha's mare, after havin' taken a cowld collation on Barny Branagan's grass, was returnin' to her master's side o' the merin; an' Barny Branagan's goats, havin' tasted the sweets of Parra Ghastha's cabbages, were on their way acrass the said merin to their own side. Now it so happened that they met exactly at a narrow gap in the ditch behind Rosha Halpin's house. The goats, bein' coupled together, got one on each side of the rift, wid the rope that coupled them extended acrass it. The mare stood in the middle of it, so that the goats were in the way of the mare, an' the mare in the way of the goats. In the meantime they surveyed one another wid great composure, but had neither of them the politeness to stir, until Rosha Halpin came suddenly out, an' emptied a vessel of untransparent wather into the ditch. The mare, who must have been an animal endowed wid great sensibility of soul, stooped her head suddenly at the noise; an' the goats, who were equally sentimental, gave a start from nervishness. The mare, on raisin' her head, came in contact wid the cord that united the goats; an' the goats, havin' lost their commandin' position, came in contact wid the neck o' the mare. _Quid multis?_ They pulled an' she pulled, an' she pulled an' they pulled, until at length the mare was compelled to practise the virtue of resignation in the ditch, wid the goats about her neck. She died by suspinsion; but the mettlesome ould crathur, wid a love of justice that did her honor, hanged the goat's in requital; for they departed this vale of tears on the mountain side along wid her, so that they had the satisfaction of dyin' a social death together.--Now, Phadrick, you quadruped, the case of conscience is, whether Parra Ghastha has a right to make restitution to Barny Branagan for the loss of his goats, or Barny Branagan to Parra Ghastha for the loss of his mare?”

“Bedad, that's a puzzler!”

“Isn't it, Phadrick? But wait till you hear how he'll clear it up! Do it for Phadrick, Dinny.”

“Yis, Phadrick, I'll illusthrate your intellects by divinity. You see, Phadrick, you're to suppose me to be in the chair, as confessor. Very well,--or _valde_, in the larned languages--Parra Ghastha comes to confess to me, an' tells me that Barny Branagan wants to be paid for his goats. I tell him it's a disputed point, an that the price o' the goats must go to the church. On the other hand, Barny Branagan tells me that Parra Ghastha wishes to be paid for his mare. I say again, it's a disputed point, an' that the price o' the mare must go to the church--the amount of the proceeds to be applied in prayer towards the benefit of the parties, in the first instance, an' of the faithful in general afterwards.”

“Phadrick!!!”

“Oh, that I may never, but he bates the globe!”

Denny's character is a very common one in the remote parts of Ireland, where knowledge is novelty, and where the slightest tinge of learning is looked upon with such reverence and admiration, as can be properly understood only by those who have an opportunity of witnessing it. Indeed, few circumstances prove the great moral influence which the Irish priesthood possesses over the common people more forcibly, than the extraordinary respect paid by the latter to such as are designed for the “mission.” The moment the determination is made, an incipient sanctity begins, as it were, to consecrate the young priest; and a high opinion of his learning and talents to be entertained, no matter how dull he may be so far as honest nature is concerned. Whatever he says is sure to have some hidden meaning in it, that would be' highly edifying, if they themselves understood it. But their own humility comes in here to prop up his talents; and whatsoever perplexity there may be in the sense of what he utters, is immediately attributed to learning altogether beyond their depth.

Love of learning is a conspicuous principle in an Irish peasant; and in no instance is it seen to greater advantage, than when the object of it appears in the “makins of a priest.” Among all a peasant's good and evil qualities, this is not the least amiable. How his eye will dance in his head with pride, when the young priest thunders out a line of Virgil or Homer, a sentence from Cicero, or a rule from Syntax! And with what complacency and affection will the father and relations of such a person, when sitting during a winter evening about the hearth, demand from him a translation of what he repeats, or a grammatical analysis, in which he must show the dependencies and relations of word upon word--the concord, the verb, the mood, the gender, and the case; into every one and all of which the learned youth enters with an air of oracular importance, and a pollysyllabicism of language that fails not in confounding them with astonishment and edification. Neither does Paddy confine himself to Latin or Greek, for his curiosity in hearing a little upon all known branches of human learning is boundless. When a lad is designed for the priesthood, he is, as if by a species of intuition, supposed to know more or less of everything--astronomy, fluxions, Hebrew, Arabic, and the black art, are subjects upon which he is frequently expected to dilate; and vanity scruples not, under the protection of their ignorance, to lead the erudite youth through what they believe to be the highest regions of imagination, or the profoundest depths of science and philosophy.