TRAITS AND STORIES OF THE IRISH PEASANTRY

BY WILLIAM CARLETON



PART VI


[Illustration: Frontispiece]


[Illustration: Titlepage]




THE POOR SCHOLAR.


One day about the middle of November, in the year 18--, Dominick M'Evoy
and his son Jemmy were digging potatoes on the side of a hard, barren
hill, called Esker Dhu. The day was bitter and wintry, the men
were thinly clad, and as the keen blast swept across the hill with
considerable violence, the sleet-like rain which it bore along pelted
into their garments with pitiless severity. The father had advanced
into more than middle age; and having held, at a rack-rent the miserable
waste of farm which he occupied, he was compelled to exert himself
in its cultivation, despite either obduracy of soil, or inclemency of
weather. This day, however, was so unusually severe, that the old man