ud and commanding in its tones; their deportment, grave and
dictatorial, but completely indescribable, and certainly original to the
last degree, in those instances where the ready, genuine humor of their
country maintained an unyielding rivalry in their disposition, against
the natural solemnity which was considered necessary to keep up the due
dignity of their character.

In many of these persons, where the original gayety of the disposition
was known, all efforts at the grave and dignified were complete
failures, and these were enjoyed by the peasantry and their own pupils,
nearly with the sensations which the enactment of Hamlet by Liston would
necessarily produce. At all events, their education, allowing for
the usual exceptions, was by no means superficial; and the reader has
already received a sketch of the trials which they had to undergo,
before they considered themselves qualified to enter upon the duties of
their calling. Their life was, in fact, a state of literary warfare; and
they felt that a mere elementary knowledge of their business would
have been insufficient to carry them, with suitable credit, through the
attacks to which they were exposed from travelling teachers, whose mode
of establishing themselves in schools, was, as I said, by driving away
the less qualified, and usurping their places. This, according to the
law of opinion and the custom which prevailed, was very easily effected,
for the peasantry uniformly encouraged those whom they supposed to be
the most competent; as to moral or religious instruction, neither was
expected from them, so that the indifference of the moral character was
no bar to their success.

The village of Findramore was situated at the foot of a long green hill,
the outline of which formed a low arch, as it rose to the eye against
the horizon. This hill was studded with clumps of beeches, and sometimes
enclosed as a meadow. In the month of July, when the grass on it was
long, many an hour have I spent in solitary enjoyment, watching the
wavy motion produced upon its pliant surface by the sunny winds, or
the flight of the cloud-shadows, like gigantic phantoms, as they
swept rapidly over it, whilst the murmur of the rocking-trees, and
the glancing of their bright leaves in the sun produced a heartfelt
pleasure, the very memory of which rises in my imagination like some
fading recollection of a brighter world. At the foot of this hill ran a
clear, deep-banked river, bounde