No doubt everyone looked on him as a ninny, and they persuaded him to prove to them that his whip was a real whip by letting Tom Bryan do the whipping for him.  Tom Bryan was a rough fellow, who ought to have been driving a plough; a ploughman’s life was too peaceful an occupation for him—­a drover’s life would have suited him best, prodding his cattle along the road with a goad; it was said that was how he maintained his authority in the parish.  The remembrance of the day he bared his back to that fellow was still a bitter one.  With a gentle smile he had handed the whip to Tom Bryan, the very smile which he imagined the hermits of old time used to wear.  The first blow had so stunned him that he couldn’t cry out, and this blow was followed by a second which sent the blood flaming through his veins, and then by another which brought all the blood into one point in his body.  He seemed to lose consciousness of everything but three inches of back.  Nine blows he bore without wincing; the tenth overcame his fortitude, and he had reeled away from Tom Bryan.

Tom had exchanged the whip he had given him for a great leather belt; that was why he had been hurt so grievously—­hurt till the pain seemed to reach his very heart.  Tom had belted him with all his strength; and half a dozen of Tom’s pals were waiting outside the door, and they came into the room, their wide mouths agrin, asking him how he liked it.  But they were unready for the pain his face expressed, and in the midst of his agony he noticed that already they foresaw consequences, and he heard them reprove Tom Bryan, their intention being to dissociate themselves from him.  Cowards! cowards! cowards!

They tried to help him on with his shirt, but he had been too badly beaten, and Tom Bryan came up in the evening to ask him not to tell on him.  He promised, and he wouldn’t have told if he could have helped it.  But some explanation had to be forthcoming—­he couldn’t lie on his back.  The doctor was sent for....

And next day he was told the President wished to see him.  The President was Eliza over again; hermits and hermitages were all very well in the early centuries, but religion had advanced, and nowadays a steadfast piety was more suited to modern requirements than pebbles in the shoes.  If it had been possible to leave for America that day he thought he would have gone.  But he couldn’t leave Maynooth because he had been fool enough to bare his back to Tom Bryan.  He couldn’t return home to tell such a story as that.  All Tinnick would be laughing at him, and Eliza, what would she think of him?  He wasn’t such a fool as the Maynooth students thought him, and he realized at once that he must stay in Maynooth and live down remembrance of his folly.  So, as the saying goes, he took the bit between his teeth.