ed, and were brought home in that state to their parents. If
the children of two opposite parties, chanced to be at the same school,
they usually had a fight, of which the master was compelled to feign
ignorance; for if he identified himself with either faction, his
residence in the neighborhood would be short. In other districts, where
Protestant schools were in existence, a battle-royal commonly took
place between the opposite establishments, in some field lying half-way
between them. This has often occurred.

Every one must necessarily be acquainted with the ceremony of _barring
out_. This took place at Easter and Christmas. The master was brought
or sent out on some fool's errand, the door shut and barricaded, and the
pedagogue excluded, until a certain term of vacation was extorted.
With this, however, the master never complied until all his efforts
at forcing an entrance were found to be ineffectual; because if he
succeeded in getting in, they not only had no claim to a long vacation,
but were liable to be corrected. The schoolmaster had also generally the
clerkship of the parish; an office, however, which in the country parts
of Ireland is without any kind of salary, beyond what results from the
patronage of the priest; a matter of serious moment to a teacher, who,
should he incur his Reverence's displeasure, would be immediately driven
out of the parish. The master, therefore, was always tyrannical and
insolent to the people, in proportion as he stood high in the estimation
of the priest. He was also a regular attendant at all wakes and
funerals, and usually sat among a crowd of the village sages engaged
in exhibiting his own learning, and in recounting the number of his
religious and literary disputations.

One day, soon after the visit of the gentlemen above mentioned, two
strange men came into Mat's establishment--rather, as Mat thought, in an
unceremonious manner.

"Is your name Matthew Kavanagh?" said one of them.

"That is indeed the name that's upon me," said Mat, with rather an
infirm voice, whilst his face got as pale as ashes.

"Well," said the fellow, "we'll just trouble you to walk with us a bit."

"How far, with submission, are yez goin' to bring me?" said Mat.

"Do you know Johnny Short's hotel?"*

* The county jail.--Johnny Short was for many years the
Governor of Monaghan jail. It was to him the _Mittimus_
of "Fool Art," mentioned in Phelim O'Toole's Courtship,
was di