Irishman that he was, when he got away
from the schoolhouse he was sorry for it. Whether dignity is the mask we
wear to hide ignorance, I am not sure, yet when Paddy Byrne was the
schoolmaster he was a man severe and stern to view; but when he was plain
Paddy Byrne he was a first-rate good fellow.

Evenings he would hold little Oliver on his knee, and instead of helping
him in his lessons would tell him tales of robbers, pirates,
smugglers--everything and anything in fact that boys like: stories of
fairies, goblins, ghosts; lion-hunts and tiger-killing in which the
redoubtable Paddy was supposed to have taken a chief part. The
schoolmaster had been a soldier and a sailor. He had been in many lands,
and when he related his adventures, no doubt he often mistook imagination
for memory. But the stories had the effect of choking the desire in
Oliver for useful knowledge, and gave instead a thirst for wandering and
adventure.

Byrne also had a taste for poetry, and taught the lad to scribble rhymes.
Very proud was the boy's mother, and very carefully did she preserve
these foolish lines.

All this was in the village of Lissoy, County Westmeath; yet if you look
on the map you will look in vain for Lissoy. But six miles northeast from
Athlone and three miles from Ballymahon is the village of Auburn.

When Goldsmith was a boy Lissoy was:

"Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain,
Where smiling Spring the earliest visits paid,
And parting Summer's lingering blooms delayed--
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please--
How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene;
How often have I paused on every charm,
The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
The decent church, that topped the neighboring hill,
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade
For talking age and whispering lovers made:
How often have I blessed the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
And all the village train from labor free,
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree--
While many a pastime circled in the shade,
The young contending as the old surveyed;
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground,
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round."

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