master whatever assistance was necessary. The poor man was dangerously
hurt, for in addition to a broken arm, he received half a dozen severe
contusions on the head, and in different parts of the body.

This closed Phelim's education; for no persuasion could ever induce him
to enter a school afterwards; nor could any temptation prevail on the
neighboring teachers to admit him as a pupil.

Phelim now shot up rapidly to the stature of a young man; and a
graceful slip was he. From the period of fifteen until nineteen, he was
industriously employed in idleness. About sixteen he began to look
after the girls, and to carry a cudgel. The father in vain attempted
to inoculate him with a love of labor; but Phelim would not receive the
infection. His life was a pleasanter one. Sometimes, indeed, when he
wanted money to treat the girls at fairs and markets, he would prevail
on himself to labor a week or fortnight with some neighboring farmer;
but the moment he had earned as much as he deemed sufficient, the spade
was thrown aside. Phelim knew all the fiddlers and pipers in the barony;
was master of the ceremonies at every wake and dance that occurred
within several miles of him. He was a crack dancer, and never attended a
dance without performing a horn-pipe on a door or a table; no man could
shuffle, or treble, or cut, or spring, or caper with him. Indeed it was
said that he could dance "Moll Roe" upon the end of a five-gallon keg,
and snuff a mould candle with his heels, yet never lose the time. The
father and mother were exceedingly proud of Phelim, The former, when he
found him grown up, and associating with young men, began to feel a kind
of ambition in being permitted to join Phelim and his companions, and
to look upon the society of his own son as a privilege. With the girls
Phelim was a beauty without paint. They thought every wake truly a scene
of sorrow, if he did not happen to be present. Every dance was doleful