gorsoon," with a red, close-cropped head
and Milesian face, having in his hand a short, white stick, or the
thigh-bone of a horse, which you at once recognize as "the pass" of
a village school, gives you the full information. He has an ink horn,
covered with leather, dangling at the button-hole (for he has long
since played away the buttons) of his frieze jacket--his mouth is
circumscribed with a streak of ink--his pen is stuck knowingly behind
his ear--his shins are dotted over with fire-blisters, black, red, and
blue--on each heel a kibe--his "leather crackers," videlicet--breeches
shrunk up upon him, and only reaching as far down as the caps of his
knees. Having spied you, he places his hand over his brows, to throw
back the dazzling light of the sun, and peers at you from under it, till
he breaks out into a laugh, exclaiming, half to himself, half to you:--

"You a gintleman!--no, nor one of your breed never was, you procthorin'
thief, you!"

You are now immediately opposite the door of the seminary, when half a
dozen of those seated next it notice you.

"Oh, sir, here's a gintleman on a horse!--masther, sir, here's
a-gintleman on a horse, wid boots and spurs on him, that's looking in at
us."

"Silence!" exclaims the master; "back from the door; boys, rehearse;
every one of you, rehearse, I say, you Boeotians, till the gintleman
goes past!"

"I want to go out, if you plase, sir."

"No, you don't, Phelim."

"I do, indeed, sir."

"What!--is it after conthradictin' me you'd be? Don't you see the
'porter's' out, and you can't go."

"Well, 'tis Mat Meehan has it, sir: and he's out this half-hour, sir; I
can't stay in, sir--iplrfff--iphfff!"

"You want to be idling your time looking at the gintleman, Phelim."

"No, indeed, sir--iphfff!"

"Phelim, I know you of ould--go to your sate. I tell you, Phelim, you
were born for the encouragement of the hemp manufacture, and you'll die
promoting it."

In the meantime, the master puts his head out of the door, his body
stooped to a "half bend"--a phrase, and the exact curve which it forms,
I leave for the present to your own sagacity--and surveys you until you
pass. That is an Irish hedge school, and the personage who follows you
with his eye, a hedge schoolmaster. His name is Matthew Kavanagh; and,
as you seem to consider his literary establishment rather a curiosity in
its kind, I will, if you be disposed to hear it, give you the history of
him and his establish