Father Maguire, for such was his name, possessed the art of adapting his language and dialect to those whom he addressed, it mattered not whether they were South, West, or North; he was, in fact, a priest who had never been in any college, but received ordination in consequence of the severity of the laws, whose operation, by banishing so many of that class from the country, rendered the services of such men indispensable to the spiritual wants of the people.  Father Maguire, previous to his receiving holy orders, had been a schoolmaster, and exercised his functions on that capacity in holes and corners; sometimes on the sheltery or sunny side of a hedge, as the case might be, and on other occasions when and where he could.  In his magisterial capacity, “the accomplishment” of whistling was absolutely necessary to him, because it often happened that in stealing in the morning from his retreat during the preceding night, he knew no more where to meet his little flock of scholars than they did where to meet him, the truth being that he seldom found it safe to teach two days successively in the same place.  Having selected the locality for instruction during the day, he put his forefinger and thumb into his mouth, and emitted a whistle that went over half the country.  Having thus given the signal three times, his scholars began gradually and cautiously to make their appearance, radiating towards him from all-directions, reminding one of a hen in a farm-yard, who, having fallen upon some wholesome crumbs, she utters that peculiar sound which immediately collects her eager little flock about her, in order to dispense among them the good things she has to give.  Poor Father Maguire was simplicity itself, for, although cheerful, and a good deal of a humorist, yet he was pious, inoffensive, and charitable.  True, it is not to be imagined that he could avoid bearing a very strong feeling of enmity against the Establishment, as, indeed, we do not see, so long as human nature is what it is, how he could have done otherwise; he hated it, however, in the aggregate, not in detail, for the truth is, that he received shelter and protection nearly as often from the Protestants themselves, both lay and clerical, as he did from those of his own creed.  The poor man’s crime against the State proceeded naturally from the simplicity of his character and the goodness of his heart.  A Protestant peasant had seduced a Catholic young woman of considerable attractions, and was prevailed upon to marry her, in order to legitimize the infant which she was about to bear.  Our poor priest, anxious to do as much good, and to prevent as much evil as he could, was prevailed upon to perform the ceremony, contrary to the law in that case made and provided.  Ever since that, the poor man had been upon his keeping like a felon, as the law had made him; but so well known were his harmless life, his goodness of heart, and his general benevolence of disposition—­for, alas! he was incapable of being benevolent in any practical sense—­that, unless among the bigoted officials of the day, there existed no very strong disposition to hand him over to the clutches of the terrible statute which he had, good easy man, been prevailed on to violate.