He has an ink horn, covered with leather, dangling at the button-hole (for he has long since played away the buttons) of his frieze jacket--his mouth is circumscribed with a streak of ink--his pen is stuck knowingly behind his ear--his shins are dotted over with fire-blisters, black, red, and blue--on each heel a kibe--his “leather crackers,” videlicet--breeches shrunk up upon him, and only reaching as far down as the caps of his knees. Having spied you, he places his hand over his brows, to throw back the dazzling light of the sun, and peers at you from under it, till he breaks out into a laugh, exclaiming, half to himself, half to you:-- “You a gintleman!--no, nor one of your breed never was, you procthorin' thief, you!” You are now immediately opposite the door of the seminary, when half a dozen of those seated next it notice you. “Oh, sir, here's a gintleman on a horse!--masther, sir, here's a-gintleman on a horse, wid boots and spurs on him, that's looking in at us.” “Silence!” exclaims the master; “back from the door; boys, rehearse; every one of you, rehearse, I say, you Boeotians, till the gintleman goes past!” “I want to go out, if you plase, sir.” “No, you don't, Phelim.” “I do, indeed, sir.” “What!--is it after conthradictin' me you'd be? Don't you see the 'porter's' out, and you can't go.” “Well, 'tis Mat Meehan has it, sir: and he's out this half-hour, sir; I can't stay in, sir--iplrfff--iphfff!” “You want to be idling your time looking at the gintleman, Phelim.” “No, indeed, sir--iphfff!” “Phelim, I know you of ould--go to your sate. I tell you, Phelim, you were born for the encouragement of the hemp manufacture, and you'll die promoting it.” In the meantime, the master puts his head out of the door, his body stooped to a “half bend”--a phrase, and the exact curve which it forms, I leave for the present to your own sagacity--and surveys you until you pass. That is an Irish hedge school, and the personage who follows you with his eye, a hedge schoolmaster. His name is Matthew Kavanagh; and, as you seem to consider his literary establishment rather a curiosity in its kind, I will, if you be disposed to hear it, give you the history of him and his establishment, beginning, in the first place, with THE ABDUCTION OF MAT KAVANAGH, THE HEDGE SCHOOLMASTER.