When the gentlemen and Mat had gone ten or fifteen yards from the school door, the Englishman heard himself congratulated in the following phrases by the scholars:--
“How do you feel afther bein' sacked, gintleman? The masther sacked you! You're a purty scholar! It's not you, Mr. Johnston, it's the other. You'll come to argue agin, will you? Where's your head, Bah! Come back till we put the _suggaun_* about your neck. Bah! You now must go to school to Cambridge agin, before you can argue an Irisher! Look at the figure he cuts! Why duv ye put the one foot past the other, when ye walk, for? Bah! Dunce!”
* The suggaun was a collar of straw which was put round the necks of the dunces, who were then placed at the door, that their disgrace might be as public as possible.
“Well, boys, never heed yez for that,” shouted Mat; “never fear but I'll castigate yez, ye spalpeen villains, as soon as I go back. Sir,” said Mat, “I supplicate upwards of fifty pardons. I assure you, sir, I'll give them a most inordinate castigation, for their want of respectability.”
“What's the Greek for tobaccy?” they continued--“or for Larry O'Toole? or for bletherum skite? How many beans makes five? What's the Latin for poteen, and flummery? You a mathemathitician! could you measure a snail's horn? How does your hat stay up and nothing undher it? Will you fight Barny Parrel wid one hand tied! I'd lick you myself! What's Greek for gosther?”--with many other expressions of a similar stamp.
“Sir,” said Mat, “lave the justice of this in my hands. By the sowl of Newton, your own counthryman, ould Isaac, I'll flog the marrow out of them.”
“You have heard, Mr. Kavanagh,” continued Mr. Johnston, as they went along, “of the burning of Moore's stable and horses, the night before last. The fact is, that the magistrates of the county are endeavoring to get the incendiaries, and would render a service to any person capable, either directly or indirectly, of facilitating the object, or stumbling on a clew to the transaction.”
“And how could I do you a sarvice in it, sir?” inquired Mat.
“Why,” replied Mr. Johnston, “from the children. If you could sift them in an indirect way, so as, without suspicion, to ascertain the absence of a brother, or so, on that particular night, I might have it in my power to serve you, Mr. Kavanagh. There will be a large reward offered to-morrow, besides.”