se of
early age, who from their poverty were forced to earn
something for their own support during the day; or to
assist their parents; or for grown young men who had
never had an opportunity of acquiring education in
their youth, but who now devoted a couple of hours
during a winter's night, when they could do nothing
else, to the acquisition of reading and writing, and
sometimes of accounts. I know not how it was, but the
Night School boys, although often thrown into the way
of temptation, always conducted themselves with
singular propriety. Indeed, the fact is, after all,
pretty easily accounted for--inasmuch as none but the
steadiest, _most_ sensible, and best conducted young
men ever attended it.

Having penned the above advertisement, it was carefully posted early the
next morning on the chapel-doors, with an expectation on the part of the
patrons that it would not be wholly fruitless. The next week, however,
passed without an application--the second also--and the third produced
the same result; nor was there the slightest prospect of a school-master
being blown by any wind to the lovers of learning at Findramore. In the
meantime, the Ballyscanlan boys took care to keep up the ill-natured
prejudice which had been circulated concerning the fatality that
uniformly attended such schoolmasters as settled there; and when this
came to the ears of the Findramore folk, it was once more resolved that
the advertisement should be again put up, with a clause containing an
explanation on that point. The clause ran as follows:

"N.B.--The two last masthers that was hanged out of Findramore, that
is, Mickey Corrigan, who was hanged for killing the Aagent, and Jem
Garraghty, that died of a declension--Jem died in consequence of
ill-health, and Mickey was hanged contrary to his own wishes; so that it
wasn't either of their faults--as witness our hands this 207th of July.

"Dick Dolan, his (X) mark."

This explanation, however, was as fruitless as the original
advertisement; and week after week passed over without an offer from
a single candidate. The "vicinity" of Findramore and its "naborhood"
seemed devoted to ignorance; and nothing remained, except another effort
at procuring a master by some more ingenious contrivance.

Debate after debate was consequently held in Barney Brady's; and, until
a fresh suggestion was made by Delany, the prospect seemed