THE ABDUCTION OF MAT KAVANAGH,

THE HEDGE SCHOOLMASTER.

For about three years before the period of which I write, the village
of Findramore, and the parish in which it lay, were without a teacher.
Mat's predecessor was a James Garraghty, a lame young man, the son of
a widow, whose husband lost his life in attempting to extinguish a fire
that broke out in the dwelling-house of Squire Johnston, a neighboring
magistrate. The son was a boy at the time of this disaster, and the
Squire, as some compensation for the loss of his father's life in his
service, had him educated at his own expense; that is to say, he gave
the master who taught in the village orders to educate him gratuitously,
on the condition of being horsewhipped out of the parish, if he refused.
As soon as he considered himself qualified to teach, he opened a school
in the village on his own account, where he taught until his death,
which happened in less than a year after the commencement of his little
seminary. The children usually assembled in his mother's cabin; but
as she did not long survive the son, this, which was at best a very
miserable residence, soon tottered to the ground. The roof and thatch
were burnt for firing, the mud gables fell in, and were overgrown with
grass, nettles, and docks; and nothing remained but a foot or two of
the little clay side-walls, which presented, when associated with the
calamitous fate of their inoffensive inmates, rather a touching image of
ruin upon a small scale.

Garraghty had been attentive to his little pupils, and his instructions
were sufficient to give them a relish for education--a circumstance
which did not escape the observation of their parents, who duly