The Project Gutenberg EBook of Going To Maynooth, by William Carleton

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Title: Going To Maynooth
Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of
William Carleton, Volume Three

Author: William Carleton

Illustrator: M. L. Flanery

Release Date: June 7, 2005 [EBook #16016]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOING TO MAYNOOTH ***

Produced by David Widger

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 tangibl