Mat, at all times rather of pliant disposition, felt
rejoiced on finding that he was still compos mentis; and on hearing what
took place, he could not help entering into the humor of the enterprise,
at which he laughed as heartily as any of them.

"Mat," said, the farmer, and half a dozen of the neighbors, "you're a
happy man, there's a hundred of the boys have a school-house half built
for you this same blessed sunshiny mornin', while your lying at aise in
your bed."

"By the sowl of Newton, that invented fluxions!" replied Mat, "but I'll
take revenge for the disgrace you put upon my profession, by stringing
up a schoolmaster among you, and I'll hang you all! It's death to steal
a four-footed animal; but what do you desarve for stealin' a Christian
baste, a two-legged schoolmaster without feathers, eighteen miles, and
he not to know it?"

In the course of a short time Mat was dressed, and having found benefit
from the "hair of the dog that bit him," he tried another glass, which
strung his nerves, or, as he himself expressed it--"they've got the rale
mathematical tinsion again." What the farmer said, however, about the
school-house had been true. Early that morning all the growing and grown
young men of Findramore and its "vircinity" had assembled, selected
a suitable spot, and, with merry hearts, were then busily engaged in
erecting a school-house for their general accomodation.

The manner of building hedge school-houses being rather curious, I will
describe it. The usual spot selected for their erection is a ditch in
the road-side; in some situation where there will be as little damp as
possible. From such a spot an excavation is made equal to the size of
the building, so that, when this is scooped out, the back side-wall, and
the two gables are already formed, the banks being dug perpendicularly.
The front side-wall, with a window in each side of the door, is then
built of clay or green sods laid along in rows; the gables are also
topped with sods, and, perhaps, a row or two laid upon the back
side-wall, if it should be considered too low. Having got the erection
of Mat's house thus far, they procured a scraw-spade, and repaired with
a couple of dozen of cars to the next bog, from which they cut the light
heathy surface in strips the length of the roof. A scraw-spade is an
instrument resembling the letter T, with an iron plate at the lower
end, considerably bent, and well adapted to the purpose for which it is