are current respecting the usher of Mullaglass.  Christian charity would lead us to hope they were unfounded, but Christian verity compels us to state that we believe every word of them.”  And though Jack and his editor sometimes overshot their mark, and got soused in damages at the instance of those whom they had libelled, yet Jack, who found that it answered his ends, persevered, and so kept the whole neighbourhood in hot water.

You would not believe me were I to tell you of half the tyrannical and preposterous pranks which he performed about this period; but some of them I can’t help noticing.  He had picked up some subscriptions, for instance, from charitable folks in the neighbourhood, to build a school upon a remote corner of North Farm, where not a single boy had learned his alphabet within the memory of man; and what, think ye, does he do with the money, but insists on clapping down the new school exactly opposite the old school in the village, merely to spite the poor usher, against whom he had taken a dislike—­though there was no more need to build a school there than to ship a cargo of coals for Newcastle.  Again, having ascertained that one of his servants had been seen shaking hands with some of Jack’s family with whom he had quarrelled as above mentioned, he refused to give him a character, though the poor fellow was only thinking of taking service somewhere in the plantations.

Notwithstanding all Jack’s efforts, however, it sometimes happened that when an usher was appointed he could not get up a sufficient cabal against him, and that even the schoolboys, knowing something of the man before, had no objection to him.  In such cases Jack resorted to various schemes in order to cast the candidate upon his examinations.  Sometimes he would shut him up in a small closet, telling him he must answer a hundred and fifty questions, in plane and spherical trigonometry, within as many minutes, and that he would be allowed the assistance of Johnson’s Dictionary, and the Gradus ad Parnassum, for the purpose.  At other tines he would ask the candidate, with a bland smile, what was his opinion of things in general, and of the dispute between him (Jack) and the Squire in particular; and if that question was not answered to his satisfaction, he remitted him to his studies.  When no objection could be made to the man’s parts, Jack would say that he had scruples of conscience, because he doubted whether his commission had been fairly come by, or whether he had not bribed the Squire by a five-pound note to obtain it.  At last he did not even take the trouble of going through this farce, but would at once, if he disliked the look of the man’s face, tell him he was busy at the moment;—­that he might lay the Squire’s letter on the table, and call again that day six months for an answer.  He no longer pretended, in fact, to any fairness or justice in his dealings; for though those who sided with him might be guilty of all the offences in the