Going To Maynooth by William Carleton
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William Carleton >> Going To Maynooth
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11 TRAITS AND STORIES OF THE IRISH PEASANTRY
BY WILLIAM CARLETON
PART V.
[Illustration: Frontispiece]
[Illustration: Titlepage]
GOING TO MAYNOOTH.
Young Denis O'Shaughnessy was old Denis's son; and old Denis, like
many great men before him, was the son of his father and mother in
particular, and a long line of respectable ancestors in general. He was,
moreover, a great historian, a perplexing controversialist, deeply read
in Dr. Gallagher and Pastorini, and equally profound in the history of
Harry the Eighth, and Luther's partnership with the devil. Denis was
a tall man, who, from his peculiar appearance, and the nature of
his dress, a light drab-colored frieze, was nicknamed the Walking
Pigeon-house; and truly, on seeing him at a distance, a man might
naturally enough hit upon a worse comparison. He was quite straight,
carried both his arms hanging by his sides, motionless and at their
full length, like the pendulums of a clock that has ceased going. In his
head, neck, and chest there was no muscular action visible; he walked,
in fact, as if a milk-pail were upon his crown, or as if a single nod of
his would put the planets out of order. But the principal cause of the
similarity lay in his roundness, which resembled that of a pump, running
to a point, or the pigeon-house aforesaid, which is still better.
Denis, though a large man, was but a small farmer, for he rented only
eighteen acres of good land. His family, however, like himself, was
large, consisting of thirteen children, among whom Denis junior stood
pre-eminent. Like old Denis, he was exceedingly long-winded in argument,
pedantic as the schoolmaster who taught him, and capable of taking a
very comprehensive grasp of any tangible subject.
Young Denis's display of controversial talents was so remarkably
precocious, that he controverted his father's statements upon all
possible subjects, with a freedom from embarrassment which promised well
for that most distinguished trait in a controversialist--hardihood of
countenance. This delighted old Denis to the finger ends.
"Dinny, if he's spared," he would say, "will be a credit to us all yet.
The sorra one of him but's as manly as anything, and as longheaded as a
four-footed baste, so he is! nothing daunts or dashes him, or puts him
to an amplush: but he'll look you in the face so stout an' cute, an'
never redden or stumble, whether he's right or wrong, that it does one's
heart good to see him. Then he has such a laning to it, you see, that
the crathur 'ud ground an argument on anything, thin draw it out to a
norration an' make it as clear as rock-water, besides incensing you
so well into the rason of the thing, that Father Finnerty himself 'ud
hardly do it betther from the althar."
The highest object of an Irish peasant's ambition is to see his son a
priest. Whenever a farmer happens to have a large family, he usually
destines one of them for the church, if his circumstances are at all
such as can enable him to afford the boy a proper education. This youth
becomes the centre in which all the affections of the family meet. He
is cherished, humored in all his caprices, indulged in his boyish
predilections, and raised over the heads of his brothers, independently
of all personal or relative merit in himself. The consequence is,
that he gradually became self-willed, proud, and arrogant, often to
an offensive degree; but all this is frequently mixed up with a lofty
bombast, and an under-current of strong disguised affection, that render
his early life remarkably ludicrous and amusing. Indeed, the pranks of
pedantry, the pretensions to knowledge, and the humor with which it is
mostly displayed, render these scions of divinity, in their intercourse
with the people until the period of preparatory education is completed,
the most interesting and comical class, perhaps, to be found in the
kingdom. Of these learned priestlings young Denis was undoubtedly
a first-rate specimen. His father, a man of no education, was,
nevertheless, as profound and unfathomable upon his favorite subjects as
a philosopher; but this profundity raised him mightily in the opinion of
the people, who admired him the more the less they understood him.
Now old Denis was determined that young Denis should tread in his own
footsteps; and, sooth to say, young Denis possessed as bright a talent
for the dark and mysterious as the father himself. No sooner had the
son commenced Latin with the intention of adorning the church, than the
father put him in training for controversy. For a considerable time
the laurels were uniformly borne away by the veteran: but what will not
learning do? Ere long the son got as far as syntax, about which time
the father began to lose ground, in consequence of some ugly quotations
which the son threw into his gizzard, and which unfortunately stuck
there. By and by the father receded more and more, as the son advanced
in his Latin and Greek, until, at length, the encounters were only
resorted to for the purpose of showing off the son.
When young Denis had reached the age of sixteen or seventeen, he was
looked upon by his father and his family, as well as by all their
relations in general, as a prodigy. It was amusing to witness the
delight with which the worthy man would call upon his son to exhibit his
talents, a call to which the son instantly attended. This was usually
done by commencing a mock controversy, for the gratification of some
neighbor to whom the father was anxious to prove the great talents
of his son. When old Denis got the young sogarth fairly in motion, he
gently drew himself out of the dispute, but continued a running comment
upon the son's erudition, pointed out his good things, and occasionally
resumed the posture of the controversialist to reinspirit the boy if he
appeared to flag.
"Dinny, abouchal, will you come up till Phadrick Murray hears you
arguin' Scripthur wid myself, Dinny. Now, Phadrick, listen, but keep
your tongue sayin' nothin'; just lave us to ourselves. Come up, Dinny,
till you have a hate at arguin' wid myself."
"Fadher, I condimnate you at once--I condimnate you as being a most
ungrammatical ould man, an' not fit to argue wid any one that knows
Murray's English Grammar, an' more espaciously the three concords of
Lily's Latin one; that is the cognation between the nominative case and
the verb, the consanguinity between the substantive and the adjective,
and the blood-relationship that irritates between the relative and the
antecedent."
"I tould you, Phadrick!! There's the boy that can rattle off the high
English, and the larned Latin, jist as if he was born wid an English
Dictionary in one cheek, a Latin Neksuggawn in the other, an Doctor
Gallagher's Irish Sarmons nately on the top of his tongue between the
two."
"Fadher, but that unfortunately I am afflicted wid modesty, I'd blush
crocus for your ignorance, as Virgil asserts in his Bucolics, _ut
Virgilius ait in Bucolids_; and as Horatius, a book that I'm well
acquainted wid, says in another place, _Huc pertinent verba_, says
he, _commodandi, comparandi, dandi, prornittendi, soluendi imperandi
nuntiandi, fidendi, obsequendi, minandi irascendi, et iis contraria_."
"That's a good boy, Dinny; but why would you blush for my ignorance,
avourneen? Take care of yourself now an' spake deep, for I'll outargue
you at the heel o' the hunt, cute as you are."
"Why do I blush for your ignorance, is it? Why thin, I'm sure I have
sound rasons for it; only think of the gross persivarance wid which
you call that larned work, the Lexicon in Greek, a neck-suggan. Fadher,
never, attimpt to argue or display your ignorance wid me again. But,
moreover, I can probate you to be an ungrammatical man from your own
modus of argument."
"Go an, avourneen. Phadrick!!"
"I'm listenin'. The sorra's no match for his cuteness, an' one's puzzled
to think where he can get it all."
"Why, you don't know at all what I could do by larnin'. It would be no
throuble to me to divide myself into two halves, an' argue the one agin
the other."
"You would, in throth, Dinny."
"Ay, father, or cut myself acrass, an' dispute my head, maybe, agin my
heels."
"Throth, would you!"
"Or practise logic wid my right hand, and bate that agin wid my left."
"The sarra lie in it."
"Or read the Greek Tistament wid my right eye, an thranslate it at the
same time wid my left, according to the Greek an' English sides of my
face, wid my tongue constrein' into Irish, unknownst to both o' them."
"Why, Denis, he must have a head like a bell to be able to get into
things."
"Throth an' he has that, an' 'ill make a noise in conthroversy yet, if
he lives. Now, Dinny, let us have a hate at histhory."
"A hate at histhory?--wid all my heart; but before we begin, I tell you
that I'll confound you precipitately; for you see, if you bate me in the
English, I'll scarify you wid Latin, and give you a bang or two of Greek
into the bargain. Och! I wish you'd hear the sackin' I gave Tom Reilly
the other day; rubbed him down, as the masther says, wid a Greek towel,
an' whenever I complimented him with the loan of a cut on the head,
I always gave him a plaster of Latin to heal it; but the sorra worse
healin' flesh in the world than Tom's is for the Latin, so I bruised a
few Greek roots and laid them to his caput so nate, that you'd laugh
to see him. Well is it histhory we are to begin wid? If it is, come
on--advance. I'm ready for you--in protection--wid my guards up."
"Ha, ha, ha! Well, if he isn't the drollest crathur, an' so cute! But
now for the histhory. Can you prove to me, upon a clear foundation, the
differ atween black an' white, or prove that Phadrick Murray here,
long life to him, is an ass? Now, Phadrick, listen, for you must decide
betune us."
"Orra, have you no other larnin' than that to argue upon? Sure if you
call upon me to decide, I must give it agin Dinny. Why my judgment won't
be worth a hap'orth, if he makes an ass of me!"
"What matther how you decide, man alive, if he proves you to be one;
sure that is all we want. Never heed shakin' your head--listen an' it
will be well worth your while. Why, man, you'll know more nor you ever
knew or suspected before, when he proves you to be an ass."
"In the first place, fadher, you're ungrammatical in one word; instead
of sayin' 'prove,' always say probate, or probe; the word is descended,
that is, the ancisthor of it, is probo, a deep Greek word--probo,
probas, prob-ass, that is to say, I'm to probe Phadrick here to be
an ass. Now, do you see how pat I brought that in? That's the way,
Phadrick, I chastise my fadher with the languages."
"In throth it is; go an avick. Phadrick!"
"I'm listenin'."
"Phadrick, do you know the differ atween black an' white'?"
"Atween black an' white? Hut, gorsoon, to be sure I do."
"Well, an' what might it be, Phadrick, my larned Athiop? What might it
be, I negotiate?"
"Why, thin, the differ atween them is this, Dinny, that black is--let me
see--why--that black is not red--nor yallow--nor brown--nor green--nor
purple--not cut-beard--nor a heather color--nor a grog-ram"--
"Nor a white?"
"Surely, Dinny, not a white, abouchal; don't think to come over me that
way."
"But I want to know what color it is, most larned sager."
"All rasonable, Dinny, Why, thin, black is--let me see--hut, death
alive!--it's--a--a--why, it's black, an' that's all I can say about it;
yes, faix, I can--black is the color of Father Curtis's coat."
"An' what color is that, Phadrick?"
"Why, it's black, to be sure."
"Well, now, what color is white, Phadrick?"
"Why, it's a snow-color: for all the world the color of snow."
"White is?"
"Ay, is it."
"The dear help your head, Phadrick, if that's all you know about snow.
In England, man, snow is an Oxford gray, an' in Scotland, a pepper an'
salt, an' sometimes a cut-beard, when they get a hard winther. I found
that much in the Greek, any way, Phadrick. Thry agin, you imigrant, I'll
give you another chance--what color is white?"
"Why, thin, it's--white--an' nothin' else. The sorra one but you'd
puzzle a saint wid your long-headed screwtations from books."
"So, Phadrick, your preamble is, that white is white, an' black is
black?"
"Asy avick. I said, sure enough, that white is white; but the black I
deny--I said it was the color of Father Curtis's black coat."
"Oh, you barbarian of the world, how I scorn your profundity an'
emotions! You're a disgrace to the human sex by your superciliousness
of knowledge, an' your various quotations of ignorance. Ignorantia,
Phadrick, is your date an' superscription. Now, stretch out your ears,
till I probate, or probe to you the differ atween black an' white."
"Phadrick!!" said the father.
"I'm listenin'."
"Now, Phadrick, here's the griddle, an' here's a clane plate. Do you see
them here beside one another?"
"I'm lookin' at them."
"Now, shut your eyes."
"Is that your way, Denis, of judgin' colors?"
"Shut your eyes, I say, till I give you ocular demonstration of the
differ atween these two respectable colors."
"Well, they're shut."
"An' keep them so. Now, what differ do you see atween them?"
"The sorra taste, man alive; I never seen anything in my whole life so
clearly of a color as they are both this minute."
"Don't you see now, Phadrick, that there's not the smallest taste o'
differ in them, an' that's accordin' to Euclid."
"Sure enough, I see the divil a taste o' differ atween the two."
"Well, Phadrick, that's the point settled. There's no discrimination at
all atween black an' white. They're both of the same color--so long as
you keep your eyes shut."
"But if a man happens to open his eyes, Dinny?"
"He has no right to open them, Phadrick, if he wants to prove the truth
of a thing. I should have said probe--but it does not significate."
"The heavens mark you to grace, Dinny. You did that in brave style.
Phadrick, ahagur, he'll make the darlin' of an arguer whin he gets the
robes an him."
"I don't deny that; he'll be aquil to the best o' thim: still, Denis,
I'd rather, whin I want to pronounce upon colors, that he'd let me keep
my eyes open."
"Ay, but he did it out o' the books, man alive; an' there's no goin'
beyant thim. Sure he could prove it out of the Divinity, if you went
to that. An' what is still more, he could, by shuttin' your eyes, in the
same way prove black to be white, an' white black, jist as asy."
"Surely myself doesn't doubt it. I suppose, by shuttin' my eyes, the
same lad could prove anything to me."
"But, Dinny, avourneen, you didn't prove Phadrick to be an ass yit.
Will you do that by histhory, too, Dinny, or by the norrations of
Illocution?"
"Father, I'm surprised at your gross imperception. Why, man, if you
were not a _rara avis_ of somnolency, a man of most frolicsome
determinations, you'd be able to see that I've proved Phadrick to be an
ass already."
"Throth, I deny that you did; there wasn't a word about my bein' an
ass, in the last discoorse. It was all upon the differ atween black an'
white."
"Oh, how I scorn your gravity, man! _Ignorantia_, as I said, is your
date an' superscription; an' when you die, you ought to go an' engage
a stone-cutter to carve you a headstone, an' make him write on it, _Hic
jacet Ignorantius Redivicus_. An' the translation of that is, accordin'
to Publius Virgilius Maro--'here lies a quadruped who didn't know the
differ atween black an' white.'"
"Well, by the livin', Dinny, I dunna where you get all this deep
readin'."
"Sure he gets it all in the Dixonary."
"Bedad, that Dixonary must be a fine book entirely, to thim that
undherstand it."
"But, Dinny, will you tell Phadrick the Case of Conscience atween Barny
Branagan's two goats an' Parra Ghastha's mare?"
"Fadher, if you were a grammarian, I'd castigate your incompatability as
it desarves--I'd lay the scourge o' syntax upon you, as no man ever
got it since the invintion o' the nine parts of speech. By what rule of
logic can you say that aither Barny Branagan's goats or Parra Ghastha's
mare had a conscience? I tell you it wasn't they had the conscience,
but the divine who decided the difficulty. Phadrick, lie down till I
illusthrate."
"How is that, Dinny? I can hear you sittin'."
"Lie down, you reptile, or I shall decline the narration altogether."
"Arra, lie down, Phadrick; sure he only wants to show you the rason o'
the thing."
"Well, well; I'm down. Now Dinny, don't let your feet be too larned, if
you plase."
"Silence!--_taceto!_ you reptile. Now, Phadrick, here, on this side o'
you, lies Barny Branagan's field; an' there, on that side, lies a field
of Parra Ghastha's; you're the ditch o' mud betuxt them."
"The ditch o' mud! Faix that's dacent!"
"Now here, on Barny Branagan's side, feeds Parra Ghastha's mare; an'
there, on Parra Ghastha's side, feed Barny Branagan's goats. Do you
comprehend? Do you insinuate?"
"I do--I do. Death alive! there's no use in punchin' my sides wid your
feet that way."
"Well, get up now an' set your ears."
"Now listen to him, Phadrick!"
"It was one night in winter, when all nature shone in the nocturnal
beauty of tenebrosity: the sun had set about three hours before; an',
accordin' to the best logicians, there was a dearth of light. It's the
general opinion of philosophers--that is, of the soundest o' them--that
when the sun is down the moon an' stars are usually up; an' so they were
on the night that I'm narratin' about. The moon was, wid great respect
to her character, night-walkin' in the sky; and the stars vegetated in
celestial genuflexion around her. Nature, Phadrick, was in great state;
the earth was undher our feet, an' the sky above us. The frost, too,
was hard, Phadrick, the air keen, an' the grass tendher. All things
were enrobed wid verisimilitude an' scrupulosity. In this manner was the
terraqueous part of our system, when Parra Ghastha's mare, after havin'
taken a cowld collation on Barny Branagan's grass, was returnin' to her
master's side o' the merin; an' Barny Branagan's goats, havin' tasted
the sweets of Parra Ghastha's cabbages, were on their way acrass the
said merin to their own side. Now it so happened that they met exactly
at a narrow gap in the ditch behind Rosha Halpin's house. The goats,
bein' coupled together, got one on each side of the rift, wid the rope
that coupled them extended acrass it. The mare stood in the middle of
it, so that the goats were in the way of the mare, an' the mare in the
way of the goats. In the meantime they surveyed one another wid great
composure, but had neither of them the politeness to stir, until Rosha
Halpin came suddenly out, an' emptied a vessel of untransparent wather
into the ditch. The mare, who must have been an animal endowed wid great
sensibility of soul, stooped her head suddenly at the noise; an' the
goats, who were equally sentimental, gave a start from nervishness. The
mare, on raisin' her head, came in contact wid the cord that united the
goats; an' the goats, havin' lost their commandin' position, came in
contact wid the neck o' the mare. _Quid multis?_ They pulled an' she
pulled, an' she pulled an' they pulled, until at length the mare was
compelled to practise the virtue of resignation in the ditch, wid the
goats about her neck. She died by suspinsion; but the mettlesome ould
crathur, wid a love of justice that did her honor, hanged the goat's
in requital; for they departed this vale of tears on the mountain side
along wid her, so that they had the satisfaction of dyin' a social death
together.--Now, Phadrick, you quadruped, the case of conscience is,
whether Parra Ghastha has a right to make restitution to Barny Branagan
for the loss of his goats, or Barny Branagan to Parra Ghastha for the
loss of his mare?"
"Bedad, that's a puzzler!"
"Isn't it, Phadrick? But wait till you hear how he'll clear it up! Do it
for Phadrick, Dinny."
"Yis, Phadrick, I'll illusthrate your intellects by divinity. You see,
Phadrick, you're to suppose me to be in the chair, as confessor. Very
well,--or _valde_, in the larned languages--Parra Ghastha comes to
confess to me, an' tells me that Barny Branagan wants to be paid for his
goats. I tell him it's a disputed point, an that the price o' the goats
must go to the church. On the other hand, Barny Branagan tells me
that Parra Ghastha wishes to be paid for his mare. I say again, it's
a disputed point, an' that the price o' the mare must go to the
church--the amount of the proceeds to be applied in prayer towards the
benefit of the parties, in the first instance, an' of the faithful in
general afterwards."
"Phadrick!!!"
"Oh, that I may never, but he bates the globe!"
Denny's character is a very common one in the remote parts of Ireland,
where knowledge is novelty, and where the slightest tinge of learning
is looked upon with such reverence and admiration, as can be properly
understood only by those who have an opportunity of witnessing it.
Indeed, few circumstances prove the great moral influence which the
Irish priesthood possesses over the common people more forcibly, than
the extraordinary respect paid by the latter to such as are designed for
the "mission." The moment the determination is made, an incipient
sanctity begins, as it were, to consecrate the young priest; and a high
opinion of his learning and talents to be entertained, no matter how
dull he may be so far as honest nature is concerned. Whatever he says is
sure to have some hidden meaning in it, that would be' highly edifying,
if they themselves understood it. But their own humility comes in here
to prop up his talents; and whatsoever perplexity there may be in
the sense of what he utters, is immediately attributed to learning
altogether beyond their depth.
Love of learning is a conspicuous principle in an Irish peasant; and in
no instance is it seen to greater advantage, than when the object of it
appears in the "makins of a priest." Among all a peasant's good and evil
qualities, this is not the least amiable. How his eye will dance in his
head with pride, when the young priest thunders out a line of Virgil
or Homer, a sentence from Cicero, or a rule from Syntax! And with
what complacency and affection will the father and relations of such a
person, when sitting during a winter evening about the hearth, demand
from him a translation of what he repeats, or a grammatical analysis, in
which he must show the dependencies and relations of word upon word--the
concord, the verb, the mood, the gender, and the case; into every
one and all of which the learned youth enters with an air of oracular
importance, and a pollysyllabicism of language that fails not in
confounding them with astonishment and edification. Neither does Paddy
confine himself to Latin or Greek, for his curiosity in hearing a little
upon all known branches of human learning is boundless. When a lad is
designed for the priesthood, he is, as if by a species of intuition,
supposed to know more or less of everything--astronomy, fluxions,
Hebrew, Arabic, and the black art, are subjects upon which he is
frequently expected to dilate; and vanity scruples not, under the
protection of their ignorance, to lead the erudite youth through
what they believe to be the highest regions of imagination, or the
profoundest depths of science and philosophy.
It is, indeed, in those brilliant moments, when the young priest is
launching out in full glory upon some topic of which he knows not a
syllable, that it would be a learned luxury to catch him. These flights,
however, are very pardonable, when we consider the importance they
give him in the eyes of his friends, and reflect upon that lofty and
contemptuous pride, and those delectable sensations which the appearance
of superior knowledge gives to the pedant, whether raw or trained, high
or low, in this profession or the other. It matters little that such
a feeling dilates the vanity in proportion to the absence of real
knowledge or good sense: it is not real, but affected knowledge, we are
writing about. Pride is confined to no condition; nor is the juvenile
pedantry of a youth upon the hob of an Irish chimney-corner much
different from the pride which sits upon the brow of a worthy Lord
Mayor, freshly knighted, lolling with strained dignity beside his
honorable brother, the mace, during a city procession; or of a Lady
Mayoress, when she reads upon a dead wall her own name flaming in yellow
capitals, at the head of a subscription ball; or, what is better still,
the contemptuous glance which, while about to open the said ball, her
ladyship throws at that poor creature--the Sheriff's wife.
In addition, however, to the enjoyment of this assumption of profound
learning which characterizes the young priest, a different spirit,
considerably more practical, often induces him to hook in other motives.
The learning of Denis O'Shaughnessy, for instance, blazed with peculiar
lustre whenever he felt himself out at elbows; for the logic with
which he was able to prove the connection between his erudition and a
woollen-draper's shop, was, like the ignorance of those who are to be
saved, invincible. Whenever his father considered a display of the
son's powers in controversy to be _capital_, Denis, who knew the _mollia
tempora fandi_, applied to him for a hat. Whenever he drew a heretic,
as a person who will be found hereafter without the wedding garment, and
clinched the argument with half a dozen quotations from syntax or Greek
grammar, he uniformly came down upon the father for a coat, the cloth
of which was finer in proportion to the web of logic he wove during the
disputation. Whenever he seated himself in the chair of rhetoric, or
gave an edifying homily on prayer, with such eloquence as rendered the
father's admiration altogether inexpressible, he applied for a pair of
smallclothes; and if, in the excursiveness of his vigorous imagination
he travelled anywhere beyond the bounds of common sense, he was certain
to secure a pair of shoes.
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